Carlos Beltrán will be recognized this summer for one Hall of a career.

The former Mets outfielder is headed to Cooperstown after it was announced Tuesday night he was voted into the Hall of Fame by the Baseball Writers’ Association of America. Also elected was Andruw Jones who, like Beltrán, spent part of his career with the Yankees.

Beltrán, in his fourth year on the ballot, received 84.2 percent of the vote. A candidate needs to reach the 75 percent threshold for induction. Jones, in his ninth year on the ballot, received 78.4 percent of the vote.

“From being on the ballot the previous years you know how the process works,” Beltrán said. “This year I felt that hopefully it was going to happen. Thank God it did happen.”

Beltrán told The Post last year that he planned to wear a Mets cap on his plaque if he was elected to the Hall of Fame. He would join Tom Seaver and Mike Piazza as the only players representing the Mets in Cooperstown.

On Tuesday he stopped short of officially committing to representing the Mets.

“There’s no doubt that my best years in baseball are with two teams, the Kansas City Royals and New York Mets,” Beltrán said. “That’s a decision I will have to sit down with my family … I really enjoyed my time in New York. Now, I work as an advisor for the Mets, so there’s a lot of weight wearing the New York cap.”  

Additionally, Mets officials have discussed retiring Beltrán’s No. 15 this season, according to a source, but logistically it might not fit given that the club already has a Mets Hall of Fame ceremony and 40th anniversary celebration of the 1986 World Series-winning team planned. And the idea of planning a number retirement ceremony for 2027 isn’t ideal given the possibility games will be canceled by a lockout.

Beltrán’s ascent to the Hall of Fame may have been slowed after he was implicated in the Astros sign-stealing scheme. As part of the fallout, Beltrán resigned as Mets manager after only 77 days on the job before even managing his first game. He later returned to the organization as a special assistant.

“On behalf of the entire organization we are thrilled to congratulate Carlos on receiving the highest honor in baseball,” Mets owners Steve and Alex Cohen said in a statement. “One of the most dynamic players ever to wear a Mets uniform, Carlos combined rare power and speed with elite defense, setting a standard of excellence that endures today. Beyond his achievements on the field, his leadership, insight and presence continue to shape our organization. It is a proud moment for Carlos, his family and Mets fans everywhere.”

Over a 20-year major league career, Beltrán hit 435 homers and was selected to nine All-Star teams. He won three Gold Gloves and two Silver Sluggers. Beltrán played for the Mets from 2005-11 after beginning his career with the Royals and Astros. Beltrán’s resume includes a 1.021 OPS in 65 postseason games with 16 homers and 42 RBIs.

Jones won 10 Gold Gloves as the premier defensive center fielder of his era and hit 434 homers over a 17-year major league career. Jones was selected to five All-Star teams. He spent most of his career with the Braves and appeared in two World Series. Ken Griffey Jr. and Willie Mays are the only other center fielders to have won as many Gold Gloves.

“It’s hard to compare yourself to those guys, they are such great baseball players,” Jones said. “I wanted to be myself. I wanted to go out there and be the best at my position and help my team win. I want to thank all the organizations that gave me a chance to continue to play the game that I love.”

Chase Utley finished third in this year’s balloting with 59.1 percent of the vote. Andy Pettitte (48.5 percent), Félix Hernández (46.1 percent) and Alex Rodriguez (40 percent) were next three behind Utley. All have remaining years on the ballot.

Jeff Kent, who played five seasons for the Mets, will be enshrined into the Hall of Fame along with Beltrán and Jones. The former second baseman Kent was elected to Cooperstown last month by the Contemporary Era Baseball Committee.

On performance alone, Carlos Beltran was an obvious Hall of Famer, one of the best all-around center fielders in baseball history. 

That he had to wait four years after becoming eligible to get enough votes for election was not an oversight but a clear consequence of his role in the Houston Astros’ sign-stealing scandal in 2017. 

In truth, that’s not an outrageous price to pay for such a blatant form of cheating, one that likely played a significant role in winning a championship and, when later revealed, sparked bitter public anger from opposing players, managers, and executives that, in some cases, still lingers. 

Of which Yankees GM Brian Cashman, for one, has left no doubt. 

Still, as someone who withheld a vote for Beltran in his first year on the ballot, as an acknowledgment of the seriousness of the sign-stealing scandal, I was glad to see that the former Met was voted into the Hall of Fame this time around, as announced by the Baseball Writers Association of America on Tuesday night. 

I’ve been a Beltran voter for the last three years, and maybe it took longer for other baseball writers to get past the stain of the scandal, but it was time. He has paid a significant price for his role in the scheme, losing his job as manager of the Mets in January of 2020 before he ever actually managed a game, and that could turn out to be his only such opportunity. 

Time will tell there, but certainly these are better days for Beltran. He has mended fences with the Mets’ organization after something of an acrimonious end to his playing days in Queens, as he was hired last year as a special assistant to David Stearns in the Mets’ front office. 

And perhaps time has healed old wounds as well with the fan base, which never seemed to fully embrace Beltran for the spectacular talent he was, in part because of his infamous take of the strike-three curve ball from Adam Wainwright to end the 2006 NLCS with the bases loaded. 

Beltran himself recently indicated as much, telling MLB.com he felt a “disconnection” with the fans during his seven years playing with the Mets, perhaps in part because of his quiet nature, but now feels embraced by the organization, to the point where he’ll likely have a Mets’ cap on his plaque in Cooperstown. 

For while he broke in with the Kansas City Royals in 1998, playing his first six seasons there, and played with a total of seven teams during his 20-year career, Beltran did have some of his best years with the Mets and now seems to feel good about his role in the organization as well.

“I see myself as a Met,” he told MLB.com.

If Beltran does go into the Hall as a Met, he’ll be only the third player to do so, joining Tom Seaver and Mike Piazza. 

As such, he’ll be recognized for a brilliant career whose outstanding center field defense, combined with his impactful offense, left no doubt about his HOF qualifications. 

Most notably, Beltran is one of five players in baseball history with at least 500 doubles, 400 home runs, and 300 stolen bases. The others are Willie Mays, Andre Dawson, Barry Bonds, and Alex Rodriguez. 

In addition, Beltran is one of baseball’s best postseason hitters, putting up a 1.021 OPS over 65 games that included 16 home runs, eight of them in that unforgettable 2004 October with the Houston Astros that led to him signing a $119 million free-agent contract with the Mets. 

Also worth noting, Beltran has the best stolen-base percentage of any player in history in the live ball era (since 1920) with at least 200 steals. He stole 312 bases while being caught 48 times, an 86.4 percent success rate that is slightly higher than Trea Turner, Mike Trout, and Tim Raines at the top of the list. 

“That stolen base percentage speaks to how smart Carlos was as a player,” former Mets manager Terry Collins once told me. “He just had a feel for the game that you couldn’t teach. His instincts were almost never wrong. He could read situations. He could read pitchers. He could see things pitchers were doing to tip a pitch that other guys couldn’t see. It was all part of what made him such a special player.”

Beltran will always be one of Collins’ favorite players, in part because he went out of his way to help the new manager establish himself with the Mets in 2010, even volunteering to move from center field to right field at one point for the good of the ballclub.

“He was willing to do whatever would help us win,” Collins told me. “When a guy of his stature is willing to do that, it makes it a lot easier for the manager to get other guys to buy in. I’ll always appreciate how much he helped me.”

As such, Collins took offense when Beltran was singled out as the ringleader of sorts in the sign-stealing scandal with the Astros, as the only player named in MLB’s investigative report.

"Carlos was an easy scapegoat because he was retiring that year,” Collins said recently. “I’ll just be thrilled when he’s finally in the Hall of Fame because he’s very deserving, both professionally and personally.”

Beltran is in now, and certainly Collins’ sentiment is shared by plenty of Mets fans. It likely was always a minority that couldn’t let go of the Wainwright strikeout, albeit a vocal minority, and as the years have passed, there has been a growing sense that most fans are happy to recognize that Beltran is an all-time great Met. 

He was already scheduled to be inducted into the Mets’ Hall of Fame in 2026. Now he’ll have his day in Cooperstown this year as well. For Beltran, times indeed have officially changed. 

The results of the BBWAA’s voting process for the 2026 Hall of Fame Class has been revealed and it’s now official: Cooperstown beckons for Andruw Jones. The center fielder from Curaçao is now the latest member of those glorious ‘90s Atlanta Braves teams to earn a spot in the hallowed circle of Baseball’s Hall of Fame. Here’s a link to the full results. Jones earned 333 votes, which placed him on 78.4 percent of all ballots and that was enough to get him induction into the Hall of Fame.

Jones made his MLB debut at the age of 19 and proceeded to eventually build a reputation for being one of the most dynamic center fielders of his era of baseball. Jones finished his career with a slash line of .254/.337/.486 with a wOBA of .352 and a wRC+ of 111. However, his defense was his main calling card, as he made stunning catches that defied what was believed could be possible out of a center fielder and made tough catches look routine as well.

While Andruw Jones certainly had to wait and steadily gain ground for his eventual induction into Cooperstown, he was able to eventually pull off the trick during this round of voting. It won’t come down to the absolute wire for Andruw Jones, as he’ll end up making it with a year of eligibility left remaining after this one. While some objectively shameful off-the-field issues and the fact that he didn’t exactly age gracefully may have been held against him when it came to his Hall of Fame case, it was his performance and overall reputation as a center fielder during his prime (which he spent entirely with the Braves) that was enough to win out and eventually gain him induction into the Baseball Hall of Fame.

Andruw Jones will be joined by Carlos Beltrán in this year’s Hall of Fame class, as they’re the only two who earned induction from this year’s ballot. Jones will also join Manager Bobby Cox, third baseman Chipper Jones, first baseman Fred McGriff, and pitchers Tom Glavine, Greg Maddux and John Smoltz as Baseball Hall of Fame members who were present on that ‘96 Braves team that came two wins away from winning it all in back-to-back fashion. A special player now joins a special crew.

Dodgers utility man Ryan Fitzgerald cleared waivers and was sent outright to Triple-A Oklahoma City on Monday, per MLB transaction logs. This keeps Fitzgerald around as a potential depth option on the position-player side, though he is currently not on the 40-man roster.

Fitzgerald was claimed by the Dodgers off waivers from the Twins on January 9, augmenting the team’s position-player depth, which at the time was thin. But in the days since then the Dodgers signed both Andy Ibáñez and Kyle Tucker, the latter to a whopping $240 million, four-year contract that hasn’t yet been finalized.

When the deal for Ibáñez was made official on January 13, the 40-man roster casualty was Fitzgerald, who was designated for assignment.

Fitzgerald made his major league debut last season at age 31 for the Twins, and hit .196/.302/.457 with four home runs in 53 plate appearances in 24 games. He started five games at shortstop and four each at second base and third base with Minnesota, and in his minor league career has started games at all four infield and all three outfield positions. Fitzgerald in 2025 with Triple-A Omaha hit .244/.336/.418 with 14 home runs, 17 doubles, three triples and a 119 wRC+ in 108 games.

Carlos Beltran, one of the best players in Mets history, is now a Hall-of-Famer.

After getting 57.1 percent of the vote in 2024 and 70.3 percent in 2025, Beltran made a leap this year to 84.2 percent of the vote to gain election to the National Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown.

Beltran should have been a first-ballot Hall-of-Famer, but he seemingly paid for his role in the Astros sign-stealing scandal during his first few years on the ballot.

There's an easy argument to make that Beltran should be wearing a Mets cap on his Hall of Fame plaque, which is Beltran's desire.

If Beltran's plaque does indeed have a Mets cap on it, he will become just the third player with that distinction -- joining Tom Seaver and Mike Piazza.

Three of Beltran's best six seasons (2006, 2007, 2008) came for the Mets, while his other three came for the Royals (2001, 2003) and during a season he split between the Royals and Astros (2004).

Beltran had more home runs, doubles, RBI, and runs scored with the Mets than any other team, and also had his highest OPS during the years he spent with them (excluding the 44 games he played for the Giants).

In addition, Beltran made five of his nine career All-Star appearances while in Queens.

Beltran is set to enter the Mets' team Hall of Fame during the 2026 season, and it's possible to envision his No. 15 eventually hanging in the rafters.

The former center fielder and current member of the front office, Beltran signed in Queens ahead of the 2005 season, helping to usher in a new era for the team shortly after Pedro Martinez arrived.

In 839 games with the Mets from 2005 to 2011, Beltran slashed .280/.369/.500 with 149 home runs, 208 doubles, 559 RBI, 551 runs scored, and 100 stolen bases.

Beyond his offensive prowess, Beltran was one of the best defensive center fielders in the game during his peak, and won all three of his Gold Gloves while with the Mets (2006, 2007, 2008).

During his 20-year career, Beltran hit .279/.350/.486 with 435 home runs, 565 doubles, 78 triples, 312 stolen bases, 1,587 RBI, and 1,582 runs scored.

In addition to his Mets stint (2005 to 2011), Beltran played for the Royals (1998 to 2004), Astros (2004, 2017), Giants (2011), Cardinals (2012 to 2013), Yankees (2014 to 2016), and Rangers (2016).

Come 2027, Buster Posey will be set to complete a five-year arc practically unprecedented in baseball history: From All-Star catcher to franchise president to Hall of Famer. 

Posey, who guided the San Francisco Giants to three World Series titles in the 2010s, highlights the first-year eligible players on the Baseball Hall of Fame's 2027 ballot. 

Posey had a furious finishing kick to his career, batting .304 with 18 homers, earning an All-Star nod and winning a Silver Slugger as the Giants won a franchise-record 107 games. He startled the baseball world by announcing his retirement in November 2021. Posey soon joined the Giants front office in an advisory role and was, almost equally startlingly, named its president of baseball operations in September 2024. 

He's likely the only newcomer who'll rank as an odds-on favorite, with pitcher Jon Lester, infielder Ryan Zimmerman and outfielder Brett Gardner the other notables making their ballot debut.

The top holdovers on the 2027 ballot include Chase Utley (59.1%), Andy Pettitte (48.5%) and Félix Hernández (46.1%).

2027 Baseball Hall of Fame ballot

Here's a look at the top players set to make their debut on the 2027 Hall of Fame ballot, ranked by career WAR:

• Buster Posey: 45 WAR
• Brett Gardner: 44.3
• Jon Lester: 43.4
• Ryan Zimmerman: 40.1
• Kyle Seager: 37
• Asdrúbal Cabrera: 30
• Ervin Santana: 27
• Todd Frazier: 25.8
• Josh Reddick: 25
• Jake Arrieta: 22.8
• Scott Kazmir: 22.1

The Rangers Grand Letter-Writer, Chris (Foodini) Drury, has made it clear that his super scorer Breadman Panarin will be out there as a pending free agent to be dealt.

Obviously, the thinking is that by making such a fulsome deal, the Rangers will obtain a juicy return, suitable for chasing rainbows and pennies from Heaven.

But wait: shouldn't Drury put his Hope Diamond in storage? What happens if Bready gets toasted with the kind of injury that has Adam Fox somewhere in mothballs?

As Sean McCaffrey points out in Blue Collar Blue Shirt, playing Panarin nowadays, hockey-wise, worse than walking a mile on hot coals.

"It feels like the Rangers are begging for their greatest asset to be victimized by some sort of season-ending injury," says McCaffrey. "If that happens, it would nullify any chances Drury would have to trade him."

Excellent point. Hence the question, should the Rangers give Bready a pre-trade sabbatical? Yes or no, please!

We have already had several incredibly close voting results in this year’s Community Prospect Rankings, but the race for spot #7 was by far the most ridiculous.

The longer I left the poll open, the more confusing it got. At various points Tuesday, each of Chase Petty, Tyson Lewis, and Steele Hall were the top vote-getters, though it was never more than a two-vote advantage separating the three of them at any point. I let it go long in hopes that someone would run away with the lead, but the opposite ended up happening – at 3:00 PM MT, each had exactly 44 votes cast for them in a three-way tie.

I’d saved my vote, though, and cast it at the last…for Steele Hall, who takes home the #7 spot in this year’s CPR by the slimmest of margins.

Hall, the 1st round pick of the Cincinnati Reds in the 2025 MLB Draft (9th overall), reclassified last year in what was originally slated to be just his junior year at Hewitt-Trussville High School in Alabama, and as a result just turned 18 years of age on July 24th. The Alabama Mr. Baseball projects as a true shortstop defensively with perhaps the best speed in the draft class, though, and the Reds selected him 9th in 2025 because they’d originally scouted him as a guy who – if he stayed in the 2026 Draft as originally planned – had a chance to develop enough to be the #1 overall pick.

He’s already added muscle, as ones do at this time (and with the pressure and direction of being a nine-figure signee of a professional sports team), and the sky is hopefully the limit for him. It’s a testament to the depth in the system right now that he’s only checking in at #7 on the CPR, though it’s going to be quite some time before we see him at the big league level.

Congrats to Steele!