Two former Yankees were elected to the National Baseball Hall of Fame on Tuesday night. Another saw his share of the vote drastically increase.
While Carlos Beltrán and Andruw Jones, former pinstripers better known for playing elsewhere in their careers, earned the call from The Hall, longtime Yankee Andy Pettitte received 48.5% of the vote on the Baseball Writers’ Association of America ballot.
BBWAA candidates require 75% of the vote for induction and get to appear on the ballot 10 times so long as they receive at least 5% of the vote.
Pettitte, on his eighth BBWAA ballot, received the fourth-highest vote share of any 2026 candidate, trailing only Beltrán (84.2%), Jones (78.4%) and Chase Utley (59.1%). Pettitte, now a special assistant to the Yankees, still has some ground to gain with only two years of eligibility left, but he’s in a much better position after receiving just 27.9% of the vote last year and 14.4% in 2024.
“[Being inducted] would be a wonderful blessing and honor,” Pettitte said of the Hall of Fame last summer at Old-Timers’ Day in the Bronx. “I mean, really, what can you say? What an unbelievable honor. I really don’t know what else to say about it. It would be amazing, and I would feel very blessed and fortunate. Would never, ever dream [of it].”
Pettitte, boosted by CC Sabathia’s first-ballot Hall of Fame enshrinement and comparable numbers, went 256-153 with a 3.85 ERA and 2,448 strikeouts over 3,316 innings and 18 seasons, 15 of which were spent in New York. He won five World Series with the Yankees, and his 19 playoff victories are the most in MLB history.
While Pettitte admitted to using human growth hormone in 2002 and 2004 in an effort to expedite his recovery from injuries, the substance was not banned or tested for at the time.
Others on the Hall of Fame ballot, such as Manny Ramirez and ex-Yankee Alex Rodriguez, served suspensions for performance-enhancing drugs after MLB began testing for such substances.
Rodriguez saw a slight uptick in his vote share this year, going from 37.1% to 40% on his fifth BBWAA ballot.
Other Yankees to appear on the ballot included Bobby Abreu (30.8%, 7th try) and Edwin Encarnación (1.4%, 1st try).
Beltrán and Jones, meanwhile, will be joined on induction day by former second baseman Jeff Kent, who was elected to the Hall of Fame last month by the Contemporary Baseball Era Committee.
