Carlos Beltran should be in the Hall of Fame
Carlos Beltran, who was briefly a Yankee towards the end of his career, should be in the Hall of Fame in the next year or two after falling 18 percent shy in terms of votes to get elected this year.
Beltrán earned 57.1% of the 2024 Hall of Fame vote, a 10.6% increase from his first year on the ballot in 2023. 75 percent of the votes are required to get elected into Hall of Fame. There were 394 total ballots in this cycle.
Billy Wagner fell just five votes short in his 9th year on the ballot and will most likely get in next year in his final year since he was so close. The next three down the list in vote getting deserve to get in even more than he does and two of those will more than likely get voted into the Hall in the next one to three years.
Gary Sheffield had 246 votes and 63.9 percent of the total votes to come in fifth place in his final year on the ballot. He needed 75 percent. Andruw Jones received 237 votes, which put him at 61.6 percent in his 7th year on the ballot. Beltran received 220 votes, which put him at 57.1 percent in his second year on the ballot.
This was Sheffield’s 10th and final year on the ballot. Sheffield could still get in through the veterans committee in many years.
Sheffield, Beltran and Jones all very much deserve to be in the Hall of Fame. Jones, who is a five-time All-Star and had a career highs of 51 homers and 128 RBI in 2005, is the best defensive center fielder of the last 30 years and possibly of all-time. He had 10 Gold Gloves in his career, which came in 10 consecutive seasons from 1998–2007. Sheffield was a nine-time All-Star and five-time Silver Slugger award winner (best offensive player at his position), he finished top 10 in MVP voting six times, he led the league in average in 1992 (.330), he had at least 100 RBI eight times and hit at least 25 homers for six different teams on his way to hitting a total of 509 homers, which is 27th all time. Of the 26 players ahead of him, 18 of those are in the Hall of Fame already and five of those have not been voted in due to steroids.
Beltran is the outfielder out of the three of them who most recently played for the Yankees. Sheffield played for the Yankees from 2004 through 2006 and had 36 and then 34 homers in his first two seasons with the team. Jones played for the Yankees in 2011 and 2012 in the last two seasons of his career that began in 1996. Beltran played for the Yankees in 2014, 2015 and in 99 games in 2016. His last season of his career was in 2017 with the Astros. He had a good 119 OPS+ in his second season with the Yankees.
Beltran had a remarkable career as he won the Rookie of the Year in 1999 (22 homers, 27 steals, 27 doubles, 108 RBI and a .293 average), was an eight-time All-Star, won a Gold Glove four times, finished in MVP consideration seven times and won two Silver Slugger awards. His best season was in 2006 when he finished fourth in MVP voting after having 38 doubles, 41 homers, 116 RBI, 18 steals, a very good .388 OBP, a .594 SLG percentage and a very good 150 OPS+. In 2006, he got a lot of recognition since he was an All-Star (3rd selection), won a Gold Glove and won a Silver Slugger in addition to having his highest MVP finish of his career.
In his 20 season career, Beltran had 2,725 hits, 1,582 runs scored, 565 doubles, 435 homers, 1,587 RBI, 312 steals, a .279 average, a solid .350 on-base percentage, a .486 SLG percentage, a 119 OPS+. Beltran is one of eight players all time with over 300 steals and over 300 homers. After only being caught stealing 49 times and having 312 steals in his career, he had the highest stolen base percentage in history of any player with 300 or more attempts. His stolen base success rate was the best among all players with at least 200 steals since 1920 (86.43 percent).
Beltran had 500 doubles, 400 homers and 300 steals. The only other players who achieved that in their careers are A-Rod, Bonds, Andre Dawson and Willie Mays. He hit at least 22 homers 11 different times in his 20 season career, he had at least 17 steals nine different times in his career and had at least 100 RBI eight different times in his career.
Beltran won his first World Series ring in 2017 with the Astros when he was 40 after making his debut all the way back in the 1998 season when he was 21. It was not known at the time but that Astros team was cheating with their electronic sign stealing but that should not keep him out of the Hall of Fame. Beltran was the only player who ended up being punished since he was fired as the coach of the Mets due to his involvement in the Astros sign stealing scandal. (His punishment ended up being after he retired).
Giancarlo Stanton hit his 11th career postseason homer in October of 2022. That tied him with Beltran for the most homers ever by any MLB player through their first 23 postseason games.
He is one of 38 players in MLB history with at least 1,500 runs scored and 1,500 RBI. A very high amount of 29 of those 38 players have already been enshrined in the Hall of Fame. That does not include future Hall of Famers Albert Pujols, Miguel Cabrera and Adrian Beltre, who was just inducted into the Hall of Fame earlier in the week. It’s all but a guarantee that 1,500 RBI and 1,5000 steals will lead to the Hall of Fame since Alex Rodriguez, Manny Ramirez, Sheffield, Bonds and Rafael Palmeiro have achieved that feat but they have all been linked to performance enhancing drugs in some way, which has factored into them not being in. In Sheffield’s case, he is not in more due to the voters not liking him.
Also, a very impressive stat for his career is that he recorded a 70.1 Wins Above Replacement (WAR), which is among the top 10 among center fielders in MLB history (8th). Of the 64 position players to reach 70 career WAR in MLB history in the Modern Era (since 1900), all but 10 — including Beltrán — are Hall of Famers.
In his postseason career, he slashed .307/.412/.609, which is good for a 1.021 OPS that checks in among the top 10 in AL/NL history. A stat that proves how well he performed in the playoffs is that he has the eighth best OPS all time in the playoffs with a minimum of 100 plate appearances.
He very impressively finished with 16 postseason homers and 42 RBI in his 65 playoff games. He had more walks (37) than strikeouts (33) in those 65 games. He first appeared in the playoffs in 2004 with the Astros who were his second team before playing with the Mets for the next 6.5 seasons. In 2004, in 12 playoff games, he had eight homers, 14 RBI, six steals, 21 runs scored and went a very impressive 20–46 (.435). His eight homers in that 2004 postseason tied Bonds’s total in the 2002 playoffs for most in a single postseason (this has since been surpassed by Randy Arozarena’s 10 homers in the 2020 postseason).
