The Hall of Fame fates of Carlos Beltrán, Andy Pettitte and others are set to be unveiled on Tuesday night.
That’s when the National Baseball Hall of Fame is scheduled to announce the remainder of its Class of 2026 as decided upon by Baseball Writers’ Association of America (BBWAA) voters.
Candidates must appear on at least 75% of the BBWAA ballots in order to be elected and at least 5% in order to remain on next year’s ballot. Every candidate gets 10 years of eligibility.
And while the official results won’t be known until they are revealed on Tuesday night’s MLB Network broadcast, enough of the ballots have been made public to offer a sense of where most of the former players stand.
As of Monday morning, 217 ballots — or about 51.2% — had been included on Ryan Thibodaux’s Hall of Fame tracker.
At that point, Beltrán was included on 88.9% of the known ballots, putting the former Mets and Yankees outfielder in a strong position in his fourth year of eligibility.
Beltrán batted .279 with 435 home runs, 1,587 RBI and 312 stolen bases over 20 MLB seasons from 1998-2017 with the Kansas City Royals, Houston Astros, Mets, San Francisco Giants, St. Louis Cardinals, Yankees and Texas Rangers.
The switch-hitter, who starred for the Mets from 2005-11, is one of five players ever with at least 500 doubles, 400 home runs and 300 stolen bases.
Beltrán’s Hall of Fame candidacy is complicated by his connection to the Astros’ 2017 sign-stealing scandal, as he was the only player named in the MLB investigation that concluded in 2020.
But support for Beltrán has increased every year that he has been on the ballot, as he went from 46.5% of the vote in 2023 to 57.1% in 2024 to 70.3% last year.
Also tracking toward induction this year is Andruw Jones, who had been included on 83.9% of the ballots as of Monday morning.
Jones, who is in his ninth year of eligibility, finished his 17-season career from 1996-2012 with only 1,933 hits, but the former center fielder clubbed 454 home runs and won 10 Gold Glove Awards.
He spent his first 12 seasons with the Atlanta Braves before playing for the Los Angeles Dodgers, Rangers, Chicago White Sox and Yankees.
As of Monday morning, Beltrán and Jones were the only players to appear on more than 75% of the known ballots.
Chase Utley was at 67.7%, while Félix Hernandez was at 57.1%.
Notably, the former Yankees star Pettitte was up to 56.7% in his eighth year of eligibility.
That marked a significant leap from last year, when Pettitte finished with 27.9% of the vote, and from 2024, when the former left-hander appeared on 14.4% of the ballots.
Pettitte has received a boost recently thanks in part to the similarities between his statistics and those of former teammate CC Sabathia, who was a first-ballot Hall of Famer last year.
Over 18 seasons, Pettitte went 256-153 with a 3.85 ERA and 2,448 strikeouts in 3,316 innings. He won five World Series with the Yankees, and his 19 postseason wins are the most in MLB history.
Sabathia, who is also left-handed, went 251-161 with a 3.74 ERA and 3,093 strikeouts in 3,577.1 innings over 19 seasons.
“[Being inducted] would be a wonderful blessing and honor,” Pettitte said 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 admitted to using human growth hormone (HGH) in 2002 and 2004 in attempts to recover from injuries. But the substance was not banned by MLB at the time, nor was it tested for.
In the eyes of some voters, that makes his case different from those of Alex Rodriguez and Manny Ramirez, who served PED suspensions after MLB introduced league-wide drug testing.
As of Monday morning, Rodriguez had appeared on 42.4% of ballots in his fifth year of eligibility, while Ramirez was behind him at 39.6% in his 10th and final year.
This year’s Hall of Fame class already includes Jeff Kent, who was elected last month by the Contemporary Baseball Era Committee.
Last year’s class included five members: Sabathia, Ichiro Suzuki and Billy Wagner, who were voted in by the BBWAA; as well as Dick Allen and Dave Parker, who were elected by the Classic Baseball Era Committee.
