Beltrán becomes 6th Puerto Rican elected to Hall of Fame

NEW YORK -- Carlos Beltrán, the graceful and powerful center fielder who plied his two-way talents for the Royals, Mets and various other clubs for two decades, is about to become the newest member of the National Baseball Hall of Fame.

Beltrán officially earned election to Cooperstown on Tuesday, appearing on 84.2 percent of Baseball Writers’ Association of America ballots to clear the 75 percent threshold needed for entry in his fourth year on the ballot. He will go into the Hall alongside Jeff Kent, whom the Contemporary Baseball Era Committee elected last month, and Andruw Jones, who also gained entry via the BBWAA ballot.

“There’s no doubt that today, my life really has changed,” Beltrán said on a conference call. “What this means to me, to Puerto Rico, to our family… it’s just a great thing that through my career, through the ups and downs of baseball, today I can say that I’m a Hall of Famer.”

The sixth Hall of Famer to hail from Puerto Rico, Beltrán joins Roberto Clemente, Orlando Cepeda, Roberto Alomar, Ivan Rodriguez and Edgar Martínez (who was born in New York but raised on the island) in Cooperstown.

For Beltrán, the game’s highest honor is the culmination of a career that saw him make nine All-Star teams, win three Gold Gloves in center field, hit 435 homers, steal 312 bases and finish his career with 2,725 hits. Beltrán won a World Series with the Astros, though that title preceded a sign-stealing scandal that cost him his job as Mets manager. Largely for that reason, Beltrán needed four years on the BBWAA ballot to gain entry to Cooperstown.

“I tried not to get caught up in that process,” Beltrán said, adding that his wife, Jessica, kept tabs on Hall of Fame balloting for him. “Every vote that I received, I knew that I received the vote because she kind of screamed. She kept me informed in the whole process. I was calm.”

Now that he is a Hall of Famer, Beltrán is likely to enter Cooperstown with a Mets cap on his plaque, though he has yet to make a formal decision. His induction will take place alongside Jones and Kent on July 26.

“There’s no doubt that the Mets are a big part of my identity,” Beltrán said. “There’s no doubt that the Mets have a lot of weight on that decision.”

The 1999 American League Rookie of the Year, Beltrán spent his first six and a half seasons in Kansas City before moving to Houston, where he became one of the most successful Trade Deadline rentals in history. After hitting 23 homers and stealing 28 bases in 90 regular-season games for the Astros, Beltrán produced a 1.557 postseason OPS for a team that made it to within one win of the World Series.

“My beginning in Kansas City is something that I always remember,” Beltran said. “For a moment, I thought that I was going to be able to be a Royal for the rest of my life. That was one of my dreams. … But my time in Kansas City was great. It was an incredible experience, and it really taught me a lot about how to play the game.”

Following his otherworldly post-Deadline run, Beltrán signed with the Mets on a then-record seven-year, $119 million contract. He spent the next six and a half years in Flushing, where, despite a slow start to his Mets tenure, Beltrán compiled a significant chunk of his career production, hitting 149 homers, stealing 100 bases and driving in 559 runs.

As injuries piled up toward the back end of Beltrán’s time in Queens, it appeared that his career was winding down. But he began a surprising second act after the Mets traded him to the Giants in another deadline deal in 2011, posting a .920 OPS down the stretch that year. From there, Beltrán bounced to the Cardinals, Yankees, Rangers and Astros, winning a ring in Houston in his 20th and final season.

Had Beltrán’s name not appeared in MLB’s report on the Astros’ 2017 sign-stealing scandal, he might have made it to Cooperstown earlier. He was the only player named in MLB’s investigation of the episode, which listed him among “a group of players” who determined “that the team could improve on decoding opposing teams’ signs and communicating the signs to the batter.”

For Beltrán, the fallout resulted in his dismissal as Mets manager before he served a single day in uniform. Beltrán spent two years out of baseball before returning as a part-time broadcaster and, eventually, a member of the Mets’ front office. He remains a special assistant to president of baseball operations David Stearns today.

“It’s been a true privilege to work with him,” Stearns said in a statement, “and I could not be happier that he is receiving this well-deserved honor.”

Some BBWAA voters punished Beltrán for his involvement with the Houston scandal, though most were ultimately willing to look past his involvement and focus on his superlative 20-season playing career.

“There’s no doubt that the Astros situation has been a topic,” Beltrán said. “And also, there’s no doubt that based on the stories that sometimes people share or people talk about what happened with the Astros, I feel like a lot of times there are agendas that are not positive toward my way. … I understand that that’s a story that I have to deal with.”

When Beltrán first became eligible for the Hall of Fame ballot in 2023, he garnered just 46.5 percent of the vote -- notably low for a player of his stature. But his support increased significantly in recent years, with 57.1 percent of the vote in 2024 and 70.3 percent last year, before a final jump in his fourth year on the ballot. Statistically, Beltrán is a deserving Hall of Famer; his WAR total is higher than those of more than a dozen enshrined center fielders, including Richie Ashburn, Andre Dawson and Larry Doby.

“I’m humbled,” Beltrán said. “That’s what comes to my mind. I’m very humbled just when I look at my story, when I look at my odds as a Latino player coming from a humble family, and now all of the sudden I’m going to have a plaque in Cooperstown next to all those great players. ... Just to be near them in the Hall of Fame, there’s no doubt that makes me proud.”