All signs point to Cooperstown when it comes to Carlos Beltrán.
Since becoming eligible to be voted into the National Baseball Hall of Fame in 2023, Beltran has continued to garner more votes each year. Last year, the former Mets outfielder who played nearly 20 years in the big leagues came only 19 votes shy of becoming part of the 2025 Hall of Fame Class, receiving 70.3% of votes.
To be inducted, players need to reach a 75% threshold, meaning 75% of the votes cast in favor of entrance. Voting is done by members of the Baseball Writers’ Association who have been active baseball writers for at least 10 years. A 5% total is needed to stay on the ballot.
Beltran has steadily been gaining more votes, which often signals that a player is about to be voted into the Hall of Fame. As of Dec. 14, the live tracking shows him receiving nearly 80% of votes, with 5.6% of ballots still unknown.
So yes, it appears as though Beltran will be enshrined in Cooperstown next summer. By numbers alone, he’s a slam-dunk, but the sign-stealing scandal and the public fallout from it have complicated the matter. To make his case, let’s first look at the numbers.
Born and raised in Puerto Rico, over parts of 20 seasons with the Mets, Yankees, Kansas City Royals, St. Louis Cardinals, Texas Rangers, San Francisco Giants and Houston Astros, Beltran slashed .279/.350/.486 with 2,725 total hits hits, 565 doubles, 78 triples, 435 home runs, 1,587 RBI, 1,582 runs scored and 312 stolen bases. He holds a career OPS+ of 119 (100 is league average) and a career 70.0 bWAR. A switch-hitting center fielder was a true five-tool player, who was an All-Star nine times, won three Glove Glove Awards, two Silver Slugger Awards, an AL Rookie of the Year Award in 1999 and regularly received MVP votes.
Beltran played in 65 postseason games, finally winning a World Series with the Astros in 2017. The Cardinals came up short in the 2013 World Series, but not because of Beltran. He hit .294 with three RBI in the series, and had a fantastic performance throughout the playoffs that season, hitting .268 with three doubles, a triple, two home runs, 15 RBI, 10 walks and an .852 OPS.
For his postseason career, he hit .307 with a 1.021 OPS. His October greatness led him to become a trade target for playoff-bound teams at the deadline yearly.
Jay Jaffe’s JAWS (Jaffe Wins Above Replacement Score) is a system used to compare Hall of Fame candidates to the players at the same positions who have already been voted into Cooperstown. A player’s JAWS is the average of his career WAR total and his peak WAR total, the combined WAR of the player’s seven best years.
The average WAR of Hall of Fame center fielders is 71.7, the average peak WAR is 44.7 and the average JAWS is 58.2. Beltran’s numbers are comparable.
- WAR: 70
- Peak WAR: 44.4
- JAWS: 57.2
Of course, there was the sign-stealing scandal with the Astros. Trash Can Gate wasn’t that long ago, and Beltran was found to be one of the leaders of the illegal operation. Voters have a set of guidelines they are instructed to consider, including a character clause, which is defined as, “the player’s record, playing ability, integrity, sportsmanship, character, and contributions to the team(s) on which the player played.”
The fallout was messy. Beltran, who played some of his best baseball over nearly seven seasons, was set to replace Mickey Callaway as the team’s manager ahead of the 2020 season, but the two mutually agreed to part ways after the investigation was concluded. He reunited with the Mets a few years ago and is currently working as a special assistant to president of baseball operations David Stearns.
Every year, there is a conversation about whether or not voters should act as moral arbiters for the sport. This came up recently when Jeff Kent was elected to the Hall of Fame by the Contemporary Era Committee, but Barry Bonds was not. It’s not a conversation that will go away anytime soon, or maybe even ever, at least not until the records set by Barry Bonds and Roger Clemens are broken by others.
Beltran’s candidacy might have been tainted by his final year on the field, but not so much that it should preclude him from being voted into the Hall of Fame. The Mets plan to put him into their own team Hall of Fame in 206, and he deserves to be in Cooperstown as well.
