Baseball Hall of Fame 2026: Why Beltran and Jones got in

The Baseball Hall of Fame welcomed two new members Tuesday night — one of whom, with apologies shohei ohtaniHe is the greatest player I have ever seen.

playing for Houston Astros In the 2004 playoffs, Carlos Beltran first introduced himself to many baseball fans with a dazzling display of power, speed, and defense. Before coming to Houston in a trade that season, Beltrán played unknown for Sad-Sac. kansas city royalsBut in 12 amazing games over two weeks in October, he hit .435, slugged .1022, hit 8 home runs, swiped 6 bases, drove in 21 runs and destroyed everything in center field.

“He was Superman,” Astros teammate Craig Biggio said in 2014. “It was a display of something I had never seen before.”

Although that was Beltran’s best game to date, he had a distinguished career in which he hit 435 home runs, while recording over 1,500 RBI and scoring 1,500 runs – one of just 39 players to achieve both milestones and one of just nine players to steal at least 300 bases.

And now, Beltran can call himself a Hall of Famer.

Andrew Jones also burst onto the scene in the postseason, a 19-year-old prodigy who hit two home runs in Game 1 of the 1996 World Series. atlanta braves. Jones hit 434 home runs, but he made his greatest impact on defense, winning 10 consecutive Gold Gloves and earning accolades as perhaps the best defensive center fielder of all time.

He is also a Hall of Famer now.

Beltran and Jones are the fourth and fifth primary center fielders to reach Hall of Fame status who began their careers after 1960, joining Andre Dawson (who played more games in right field but earned more value as a center fielder), Kirby Puckett, and Ken Griffey Jr.

This is a small group. Let’s see how they got here.

Why is Carlos Beltran a Hall of Famer?

The easiest way to describe Beltran: He was a five-tool player. We can use statistics to verify this claim. He is one of eight players to have both 300 home runs and 300 stolen bases. He has the highest career stolen base success rate (86.4%) among players with at least 200 attempts. He won three Gold Gloves and had a great arm, leading his league in assists four times. His single-season home run total reached 41, and he hit at least 30 four times and 29 twice. He hit .300 four times and .290 in three other seasons.

Other numbers are: 1500/1500 Club indicating its longevity; nine All-Star selections; Impressive resume in the postseason, where he hit .307/.412/.609 with 16 home runs and 42 RBI in 65 games. Among players with at least 200 plate appearances in the postseason, he is the only player with an OPS above 1,000, higher than Albert Pujols or David Ortiz or Mickey Mantle or Reggie Jackson.

However, the numbers do not reflect the fluidity and grace with which he played, especially in the first half of his career when his velocity decreased. He can beat you in many ways – some New York Mets Fans never fully appreciated it. After his big October with the Astros, Beltrán signed a seven-year, $119 million contract with the Mets before the 2005 season. At the time, it was only the 10th contract in baseball history worth at least $100 million, and Mets fans spent the next seven years expecting Beltrán to play at that level for an entire season.

In fact, Mets fans’ lasting memory of Beltran is called strike three on an adam wainwright Curveball for the final out of Game 7 of the 2006 NLCS. Unfortunately, that one strikeout ended Beltran’s tenure with the Mets. Over seven seasons, he ranked ninth among position players in WAR, including 8.2-WAR seasons in 2006 and 7.0 WAR in 2008.

after a trade san francisco giants In the final year of his Mets contract, Beltrán again moved around: toward St. Louis CardinalsThe New York Yankeesfew months with Texas Rangers. He was a winning player, making the playoffs with all the clubs he played with, a respected veteran leader. His final season was a return to the Astros in 2017.

This is where he tarnished his legacy when it was later discovered that the Astros were stealing signs. beltran was one The central figure in the whole sordid affairTold teammates that the Astros were “behind the times” in an era when teams were learning to monitor video to steal signs. He helped devise the infamous scheme of beating the dustbin so that signals for theft could be quickly transmitted to the batsman.

So yes, he cheated.

it He lost his job as manager of the Mets.For which he was hired in November 2019, just before the scam came to light. Then-Astros manager AJ Hinch got another managerial opportunity. Red Sox manager Alex Cora, who was involved in fraud as coach with the Astros in 2017, was suspended for one season but returned as captain of Boston In 2021. Beltran did not get a second opportunity to manage, although he did get Connect with the Mets Front Office In 2023. The scandal undoubtedly delayed his entry into Cooperstown, as he could have been a first-round pick in 2023.

In the end, the depth of his accomplishments was too great to ignore. Among players who played at least 50% of their games in center field, he ranks eighth all-time with a 70.0 career WAR. He’s not an inner-circle Hall of Famer, but he’s well above the line of borderline candidates. According to Jay Jaffe’s JAWS system, which combines career and peak value, Beltrán is rated as an average Hall of Fame selection among center fielders.

He exuded Hall of Fame quality and, for one breathtaking October, was as good as anyone who has ever played the game.

Why is Andrew Jones a Hall of Famer?

Years ago, when John Smoltz was still pitching for the Braves, I asked him how Jones helped him as a pitcher by playing center field behind him. The key, Smoltz explained, was that you could be behind in the count but still feel confident throwing the fastball, knowing that Jones could hit a hard-hit ball in the gap – and that would cause you to walk less or fall even further behind in the count.

Do the numbers support that claim? Jones became the Braves’ full-time center fielder in 1998 and remained there until 2007 – where he won 10 consecutive Gold Gloves. During those years, Smoltz allowed a .259 average after going 1–0; The MLB average over that period was .339. Of course, Smoltz is a Hall of Fame pitcher, so you would expect him to be better than average. Still, that’s an 80-point difference, and Smoltz’s overall batting average over that span was only 27 points lower (.240 vs. .267).

It’s impossible to know how much of that success can be attributed directly to Jones, but there’s one thing anyone who has seen Jones play center field can attest to: 10 Gold Gloves don’t lie.

With those 434 home runs, Jones joined Willie Mays, Ken Griffey Jr. and Mike Schmidt as the only players with at least 400 home runs and 10 Gold Gloves. Needless to say, those are three players from the inner circle of Hall of Famers, and Jones’ defense/power combo is the most concise way to explain why he is now a Hall of Famer. Of course, not Jones In fact All three of them are in the same category, which is why it took nine ballots for them to get elected.

his defense for that decade Was Special – and it should be noted that the Braves made the playoffs every year from 1996 to 2005, when only four teams per league were able to make it. Jones played exclusively in shallow center field, yet it seemed impossible to hit the ball over his head. His leaps and anticipation were great and, even while active, comparisons to Mace were frequent. An oft-repeated story told by former Braves third baseman Terry Pendleton is that Mays was standing around the batting cages in San Francisco one day and told a young Jones that he was the best center fielder Mays had ever seen.

It is unclear whether Mace was involving himself in this or not.

The defensive metrics used at Baseball-Reference – which are an amalgamation of different systems based on each player’s era – rank Jones as the fourth-most valuable defensive player, behind only Brooks Robinson, Mark Belanger and Ozzie Smith. This makes him the top-rated outfielder: 30 runs better than Roberto Clemente (No. 2 outfielder) and 50 runs better than Mays (No. 3 outfielder).

Kicker: Jones played 14,857 innings in center field, a total of 17,000 innings in the outfield. Meanwhile, Mays played 24,331 innings in center field. Per 1,350 innings, the equivalent of a full season’s playing time, Jones saved an average of 18.6 runs; Mays saved an average of 10.2 runs. Yes, Mays played into his 40s, losing some defensive value as he aged, while Jones’ last season as a center fielder came when he was just 30. (And once he left the Braves after the 2007 season, he became a role player within two years.)

Still… almost twice as good as Mace? Perhaps this helps explain some of the skepticism about Jones as a Hall of Famer, even though his career WAR of 62.7 ranks 13th among players who have played at least half his games in center field.

Like Beltran, Jones also had an incident that tarnished his image, which caused – and still causes – some voters to abandon him. In December 2012, after playing his final game in the majors (he would play two more seasons in Japan), Jones was arrested and charged with battery after a domestic dispute with his wife. He pleaded guilty, paid a fine and received probation.

Jones came in without a care. Like Ozzie Smith or Brooks Robinson, he was a key player on winning teams, a key player in nightly SportsCenter dramas, he had enough value at the plate to be selected.

Two center fielders. Over time we’ll get a few more of them installed in Cooperstown.