Former Yankees Carlos Beltrán, Andruw Jones elected to Hall of Fame

There are two new members of the National Baseball Hall of Fame, and both of them are ex-Yankees. On Tuesday night, the BBWAA released the results of this year’s Hall of Fame ballot: Carlos Beltrán and Andruw Jones have been elected as part of the class of 2026. The pair will be enshrined in Cooperstown alongside Eras Committee pick Jeff Kent on July 26th.

The pair were born just one day apart in April of 1977 and have now been elected to the Hall of Fame on the same day. Only two center fielders had been elected to Cooperstown in the last 45 years, so to induct a pair in on the same day is a relative bonanza.

Beltrán topped balloting in this cycle, receiving 84.2 percent of the vote in his fourth year on the ballot. It’s a jump of almost 13 percentage points from last year, when Beltrán narrowly missed out on election.

Beltrán played 20 seasons in the big leagues with the Royals, Astros, Mets, Giants, Cardinals, Yankees, and Rangers, slashing .279/.350/.486 with 435 home runs, 1,587 RBIs, 312 stolen bases, a 118 wRC+, and 67.4 fWAR. He was a nine-time All-Star, three-time Gold Glover, two-time Silver Slugger, the 1999 AL Rookie of the Year, and the 2013 Roberto Clemente Award winner. He hit the fourth-most home runs of any switch-hitter in league history behind only Mickey Mantle, Eddie Murray, and Chipper Jones, and is one of only eight players in MLB history with at least 300 home runs and 300 stolen bases alongside Willie Mays, Bobby Bonds, Andre Dawson, Barry Bonds, Steve Finley, Reggie Sanders, and Alex Rodriguez.

Beltrán played two-and-a-half seasons for the Yankees in his late-30s and was one of their more productive hitters in the mid-2010s before being traded to the Rangers for a trio of prospects at the 2016 deadline. He would go on to win his lone World Series ring a year later with the Astros, but was seen as one of the architects of their sign-stealing scandal, which was one of the principal factors in his not being elected to the Hall in his first three years of eligibility. Nonetheless, he becomes the sixth player born in Puerto Rico to be elected to Cooperstown.

Jones sneaks in with 78.4-percent of the vote, representing just over a 12 percentage point increase from his vote share last year. It was Jones’ ninth year on the ballot, his penultimate year of eligibility.

Jones becomes the first player born in Curaçao to be elected to the Hall of Fame. He was considered one of the all-time great defensive center fielders in MLB history, his 126.4 UZR ranking him second all-time behind Ichiro Suzuki and his 150 total zone runs ranking him fifth all-time behind Roberto Clemente, Willie Mays, Barry Bonds, and Jesse Barfield. He blended that defense with prodigious power — he is one of only four players in history with at least ten Gold Gloves and 400 home runs, joining Mays, Ken Griffey Jr., and Mike Schmidt.

In his 17 big league seasons, Jones played for the Braves, Dodgers, Rangers, White Sox and Yankees, making five All-Star appearances and earning ten Gold Glove Awards. He slashed .254/.337/.486 with 434 home runs, 1,289 RBIs, 152 stolen bases, a 111 wRC+ and 67 fWAR. His career is bookended by encounters with the Yankees. As a rookie in 1996, he became the youngest player in MLB history to homer in the World Series at just 19 years old, breaking the record set by Mickey Mantle when he hit home runs in his first two at-bats of Game 1 of the 1996 World Series. He played the final two seasons of his big league career with the Yankees in 2011 and 2012 before playing a final two seasons with the Tohoku Rakuten Golden Eagles of NPB.

Andy Pettitte experienced one of the biggest jumps in vote share, going from 27.9-percent of the vote last year to 48.5-percent of the vote in this cycle. It’s an encouraging sign for Pettitte in his eighth year on the ballot — if he can experience similar jumps in his final two years of eligibility there is a real chance he could be elected. There will always be questions of the effect his admission to using HGH will have on future voting, but the all-time postseason wins leader is certainly trending in the right direction.

As for other former Yankees on the ballot, Alex Rodriguez remained relatively stagnant, going from 37.1-percent of the vote last year to 40-percent in this, his fifth year of eligibility. Bobby Abreu experienced a nice jump from 19.5-percent last year to 30.8-percent this year, but with only three more years on the ballot, he will need to be handed even bigger boosts in future voting cycles to have a shot. Edwin Encarnación received just six votes (1.4-percent) in his first year on the ballot and will therefore fall off the ballot as he comes up short of the five-percent threshold needed to maintain eligibility.

Congratulations again to Beltrán and Jones on this fantastic achievement.