{"id":420769,"date":"2026-01-21T12:33:10","date_gmt":"2026-01-21T12:33:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/420769\/"},"modified":"2026-01-21T12:33:10","modified_gmt":"2026-01-21T12:33:10","slug":"beltran-jones-elected-to-hall-of-fame","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/420769\/","title":{"rendered":"Beltran, Jones Elected To Hall Of Fame"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Baseball Writers Association of America announced that Carlos Beltr\u00e1n<\/a> and\u00a0Andruw Jones<\/a> have been elected to the Hall of Fame. They\u2019ll be inducted into Cooperstown alongside Jeff Kent<\/a>, who was elected by the Era Committee<\/a>, on July 26. Beltr\u00e1n appeared on 84.2% of ballots, while Jones got to a 78.4% vote share.<\/p>\n

Beltr\u00e1n gets the honor in his fourth year. The switch-hitting outfielder was the only player who fell between 70% and 75% on last year\u2019s ballot. His positive trend lines made it a near lock that he\u2019d surpass the 75% threshold this winter.<\/p>\n

The Royals drafted Beltr\u00e1n, a native of Puerto Rico, in the second round in 1995. He reached the big leagues as a September call-up three years later and ranked as one of the sport\u2019s top prospects going into his first full season in 1999. Scouting reports projected him as a potential five-tool center fielder, and Beltr\u00e1n lived up to that billing immediately.<\/p>\n

He hit .293\/.337\/.454 with 22 homers and 27 stolen bases during his debut campaign. Beltr\u00e1n was the runaway choice for American League Rookie of the Year, the first of many accolades he\u2019d accrue over the next two decades. Injuries and a sophomore slump limited his playing time in 2000, but Beltr\u00e1n reestablished himself as one of the sport\u2019s best outfielders the following year. He\u2019d hit above .300 in two of the next three seasons, earning his first top 10 MVP finish behind a .307\/.389\/.522 showing in 2003.<\/p>\n

The roster around Beltr\u00e1n was not nearly as strong. A small-market Kansas City franchise was unlikely to re-sign him, making him a top trade chip as he entered his final season of club control. The Royals dealt Beltr\u00e1n, a first-time All-Star, to the Astros midway through the \u201904 season. He appeared on the National League roster \u2014 Houston was then an NL team \u2014 and finished 12th in MVP balloting despite spending the first three months in the American League. Beltr\u00e1n hit .258\/.368\/.559 with 23 homers in 90 regular season games for Houston.<\/p>\n

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His introduction to the postseason couldn\u2019t have gone any better. Beltr\u00e1n batted .435 with eight homers in 12 playoff games, helping Houston to within one game of a trip to the World Series. The Astros would go on to win the pennant one year later, but Beltr\u00e1n had moved on in free agency by that point. He signed what was then a franchise-record deal with the Mets: seven years and $119MM.<\/p>\n

Beltr\u00e1n\u2019s first season in Queens was a bit of a disappointment, but he rebounded with arguably the best season of his career in 2006. He hit a career-best 41 home runs and drove in a personal-high 116 runs with a .275\/.388\/.594 slash line. Beltr\u00e1n won his first Gold Glove and Silver Slugger awards while finishing fourth in MVP voting. Baseball Reference credited him with eight wins above replacement, the best mark of his career. He remained a force into the playoffs, batting .278 with a .422 on-base percentage over 10 games.<\/p>\n

For the second time in three years, Beltr\u00e1n\u2019s team lost the seventh game of an NLCS battle with the Cardinals. The \u201907 Mets famously melted down in September to squander the NL East title to the Phillies. They wouldn\u2019t return to the playoffs during Beltr\u00e1n\u2019s tenure, yet there\u2019s no doubt they got their money\u2019s worth from the free agent investment. Beltr\u00e1n played in 839 games while hitting .280\/.369\/.500 with 149 homers over six and a half seasons in a Mets uniform.<\/p>\n

The club also netted a top pitching prospect named\u00a0Zack Wheeler<\/a> when they traded the impending free agent to the Giants in 2011. He raked down the stretch with San Francisco, but they narrowly missed the postseason between their World Series wins in 2010 and \u201912. Beltr\u00e1n signed a two-year deal with the Cardinals the following year. He hit .282\/.343\/.493 over his time in St. Louis, but his impact again was brightest in the postseason. Beltr\u00e1n was a stellar playoff performer in both years.<\/p>\n

Beltr\u00e1n signed a three-year contract with the Yankees over the 2013-14 offseason. He remained an above-average hitter over his time in the Bronx, albeit without the defensive value he\u2019d had for the majority of his career. He made it back to the playoffs in 2016 after being dealt to the Rangers at the deadline. Beltr\u00e1n finished his career on a one-year contract to return to the Astros.<\/p>\n

The final season in Houston wound up leaving Beltr\u00e1n with a complicated legacy. He was an integral part of the team\u2019s sign-stealing operation that wasn\u2019t publicly revealed until a few seasons thereafter. Beltr\u00e1n wasn\u2019t much of an on-field contributor at age 40, but he collected his first World Series ring when the Astros won their first title in franchise history.<\/p>\n

Beltr\u00e1n\u2019s role in the sign-stealing scandal became public over the 2019-20 offseason. He had just been hired by the Mets as manager a few months earlier. He stepped down and forfeited his salary once the operation became public. Beltr\u00e1n has remained involved in the game in less prominent roles, working as a television analyst with the YES Network and spending the past few seasons as a special assistant in the Mets\u2019 front office. He\u2019s also in charge of building the roster for the Puerto Rican national team at the upcoming World Baseball Classic.<\/p>\n

The sign-stealing scandal probably delayed Beltr\u00e1n\u2019s entry to Cooperstown. His statistical r\u00e9sum\u00e9 made him a very strong candidate to get in on the first ballot. He finished his playing days with a .279\/.350\/.486 batting line. He hit 435 home runs, stole 312 bases, and drove in nearly 1600. Baseball Reference valued his career at 70 WAR, which doesn\u2019t even account for his playoff excellence. Jay Jaffe\u2019s JAWS metric has him as a top 10 center fielder of all time. Whatever trepidation some voters may have had about honoring him within the first couple years on the ballot, the end result is that he\u2019s headed to Cooperstown to cement his legacy as one of the best center fielders to play the game.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s also the case for Jones, who ranks 11th among center fielders by the same JAWS calculation. He gets in on his ninth year on the ballot, one season after receiving 66% of the vote. A native of Curacao, Jones signed with the Braves as an international amateur and flew through the minor leagues. He was the #1 prospect in the game when he reached the majors in the second half of the 1996 season. Jones stepped seamlessly onto a loaded Atlanta roster that was midway through their run of dominance in the National League. They were coming off a championship and would head back to the Fall Classic in \u201996.<\/p>\n

A 19-year-old Jones embraced the big stage, hitting .345 with a trio of home runs in October. That included a two-homer showing in Game 1 against the Yankees, and he remains the youngest player ever to hit a World Series home run. The Braves won the first game but wound up dropping the series in six.<\/p>\n

Jones played mostly right field during his first full season. He hit .231 with 18 homers in 153 games and finished fifth in NL Rookie of the Year balloting. He really took off the following year, kicking off a decade-long run as the sport\u2019s best defensive outfielder and a premier power threat. Jones hit 31 homers while batting .271\/.321\/.515 and earning his first Gold Glove in 1998. That was his first of seven 30-homer campaigns and, more remarkably, the start of a streak of 10 consecutive Gold Glove awards.<\/p>\n

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He\u2019d start all 162 games for the Braves in 1999, playing elite defense while batting .275\/.365\/.483 with 26 homers and 35 doubles. The Braves made it back to the World Series after losing the NLCS in the prior two seasons. They were again knocked off by the Yankees, this time in a sweep. Jones didn\u2019t have great playoff numbers over that stretch but remained one of the league\u2019s best players in the regular season. He hit 36 homers in a 2000 season which Baseball Reference valued at eight wins above replacement, a career high that ranked fourth in MLB among position players.<\/p>\n

Jones earned an eighth-place MVP finish in 2000 and very likely would have finished higher had today\u2019s defensive metrics been around at the time. He reeled off another three 30-plus homer seasons after that, narrowly dropping below that cutoff with a 29-homer showing in 2004. He rebounded with his most impressive offensive performance in \u201905, as he slugged an MLB-best 51 longballs and led the National League with 128 runs batted in. Jones won a Silver Slugger for the first and only time and finished as the MVP runner-up behind Albert Pujols<\/a>. It was a narrow split, as Pujols received 18 first-place votes against Jones\u2019 13. (Third-place finisher Derrek Lee<\/a> received the other one.)<\/p>\n

The righty hitter remained an impact run producer the following season, as he slugged 41 more home runs with a career-high 129 RBI. That was his last impact season, as his rate stats dropped in 2007. The Braves let him depart in free agency at season\u2019s end, and he was essentially finished as an everyday player at age 31. Jones played parts of five more seasons between the Dodgers, Rangers, White Sox and Yankees. He didn\u2019t record more than 64 hits in any of his final five campaigns.<\/p>\n

While it was a precipitous decline, Jones had one of the more impressive peaks in baseball history. He hit 368 home runs with a .263\/.342\/.497 batting line between his debut and the end of his age-30 season. Retroactive defensive metrics come with significant error bars, but FanGraphs estimates<\/a> he was roughly 134 runs better than an average defender during that stretch. That\u2019s 25 runs clear of the second-place finisher at any position (Adrian Beltr\u00e9<\/a>) and certainly aligns with both his impressive accolades and scouting evaluations that consider him among the best outfield defenders in MLB history. Jones is one of six outfielders to win 10 Gold Gloves. He\u2019s alongside\u00a0Roberto Clemente<\/a>,\u00a0Willie Mays<\/a>,\u00a0Ken Griffey Jr.<\/a>,\u00a0Al Kaline<\/a> and\u00a0Ichiro<\/a> in that company and now, in Cooperstown.<\/p>\n

Jones finished his career as a .254\/.337\/.486 hitter. His 434 homers place him one behind Beltr\u00e1n for sixth among center fielders and tied with Juan Gonz\u00e1lez<\/a> for 49th regardless of position. He nevertheless had a lengthy stay on the ballot as some voters struggled with his lack of production after he left Atlanta. Others may have withheld a vote on moral grounds, as Jones pleaded guilty to domestic battery charges<\/a> and paid a fine after his wife alleged that he put his hands around her neck in December 2012. That came after the end of Jones\u2019 MLB career, though he subsequently played two seasons in Japan to finish his professional playing days.<\/p>\n

While Jones will certainly go into the Hall as a Brave, Beltr\u00e1n had a nomadic enough career to consider a few options for his plaque. The Hall of Fame has final say but works with the player to choose which cap they\u2019ll don. Beltr\u00e1n tells Bob Nightengale of USA Today<\/a> that while no decision has been finalized, he\u2019s likely to go into Cooperstown as a Met.<\/p>\n

Looking further down the ballot,\u00a0Chase Utley\u2019s<\/a>\u00a059% vote share was the highest among the candidates who were not elected. That\u2019s up 20 points relative to last winter. It puts Utley, who has been on the ballot for three years, on track for eventual enshrinement \u2014 with an outside chance that he gets in as soon as next year. No other candidate appeared on more than half the ballots.<\/p>\n

Of this year\u2019s first-time candidates, only Cole Hamels<\/a> (23.8%) received more than the 5% necessary to remain under consideration. All but one player who fell off the ballot was up for consideration for the first time. The lone exception is\u00a0Manny Ram\u00edrez<\/a>, who drops off after coming up short in his 10th year. Ram\u00edrez\u2019s history of performance-enhancing drug use (including a failed test) made him a non-starter for many voters, and he appeared on fewer than 40% of ballots in his final year. His only path to enshrinement is via the Era Committees, and their decision last month on Barry Bonds<\/a> and\u00a0Roger Clemens<\/a> makes it difficult to see a scenario where Ram\u00edrez ever gets in.<\/p>\n

Next year will be the final consideration for\u00a0Omar Vizquel<\/a>, who has no chance of jumping from 18% to induction. Buster Posey<\/a> and\u00a0Jon Lester<\/a> headline a class of first-time candidates that\u2019ll also include\u00a0Ryan Zimmerman<\/a>,\u00a0Kyle Seager<\/a>,\u00a0Brett Gardner<\/a> and\u00a0Jake Arrieta<\/a>. Posey seems likely to get serious consideration for first-ballot induction, while Lester should easily have enough support to get more than 5% and remain on the ballot for future seasons.<\/p>\n

Full voter breakdown<\/a> courtesy of BBWAA. Respective images via USA Today Sports.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Baseball Writers Association of America announced that Carlos Beltr\u00e1n and\u00a0Andruw Jones have been elected to the Hall…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":420770,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[181598,101073,101573,128003,49777,99],"class_list":{"0":"post-420769","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-sports","8":"tag-andruw-jones","9":"tag-carlos-beltran","10":"tag-chase-utley","11":"tag-cole-hamels","12":"tag-manny-ramirez","13":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/420769","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=420769"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/420769\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/420770"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=420769"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=420769"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=420769"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}