On Hall of Fame induction day, here’s how Beltrán, Jones and Kent got to Cooperstown
COOPERSTOWN, N.Y. — They will stand at the podium Sunday in baseball’s Magic Kingdom, their long Hall of Fame journeys finally complete. Some men zoom into the Baseball Hall of Fame on the first try. Not Carlos Beltrán. Not Andruw Jones. Not Jeff Kent.
Induction Day has finally arrived for all of those men. But to get there, they had to agonize through a combined 24 elections — four for Beltrán, nine for Jones, 11 for Kent. So as they gaze from that stage at the crowded hillside on Sunday afternoon, how will they not be thinking about all the years they wondered if this day would ever arrive?
“This is just an unbelievable moment,” Kent said last winter, at the press conference where he donned his Hall of Fame jersey for the first time — and on this unforgettable Sunday, the power of this latest moment promises to be just as overwhelming.
Beltrán and Jones also reminded us that center fielders have long been the most glamorous Hall of Famers of them all, from Joe DiMaggio and Mickey Mantle to Willie Mays and Ken Griffey Jr. But never have two center fielders been elected by the baseball writers and experienced their Induction Day on the same day — until Sunday.
So how fitting is it that these two men were born just one day apart in April 1977? Now they will share this day, and this honor, for a lifetime.
Kent is the first second baseman to enter the Hall since the arrival of Craig Biggio in 2015. Second base has long been one of the least represented positions in the Hall. So someday, visitors to the Hall may stare at Kent’s prodigious offensive numbers and wonder why it took him so long to earn this plaque.
Here’s a look at the path to the Hall of Fame for each player.
Beltrán’s Hall of Fame credentials
Carlos Beltrán, the switch-hitting center fielder who could do it all. (Ezra Shaw / Getty Images)
He spent 20 seasons working his magic for seven different teams. Beltrán was a Met … and a Royal … and a Yankee … and a Cardinal. He also passed through Texas and San Francisco – and had two different stints as a Houston Astro.
Among men who played their entire careers during the live-ball era (since 1920), only two of them are switch-hitting Hall of Fame center fielders. One is Mantle. The other: Carlos Beltrán.
Mantle sailed into the Hall in his first year on the ballot. Beltrán might well have joined him — if there had been no such thing as Trash Can-gate. But by the time he showed up on the ballot in 2023, the baseball world knew way too much about Beltrán’s role in the 2017 Astros’ trash-can symphony.
The Athletic first reported in 2019 on the Astros’ illegal sign-stealing escapades that year, which involved banging on trash-can lids to signal to hitters which pitches were coming. So it was fair to wonder if Beltrán — or any of his teammates — would be elected at all.
Instead, Beltrán wound up paying a three-election penalty of sorts for his prominent part. But by his fourth orbit on this ballot, the voters — select members of the Baseball Writers’ Association of America — decided that Beltrán had served his time.
One big reason he made it to the podium is that he’d already had a Hall of Fame career — 19 years of consistent excellence — before he joined those 2017 Astros. So once the voters just focused on what Beltrán achieved over those first 19 seasons, he looked like the most obvious Hall of Famer on the 2026 ballot. Here’s why:
He could do it all — With some players, we ask: What was he good at? With Beltrán, it was easier to ask: What wasn’t he good at? His Baseball Reference page shows us he made an impact every way a player could make one:
Batting Runs above average: Plus-262
Fielding Runs above average: Plus-40
Baserunning Runs above average: Plus-55
Here’s every retired outfielder since 1900 with plus-250 Batting Runs (or better), plus-40 Baserunning Runs (or better) and plus-40 Fielding Runs (or better), according to Baseball Reference:
Willie Mays
Rickey Henderson
Joe DiMaggio
Henry Aaron
Barry Bonds
Larry Walker
Carlos Beltrán
Ever heard of those guys? Except for Bonds, you can learn more about every one of them from their plaques in Cooperstown.
He solved the Metrics Matrix — You can’t get elected to the Hall of Fame in the 21st century if the modern metrics don’t say you belong. But that was not a problem for Carlos Beltrán.
Baseball Reference computed Beltrán’s career Wins Above Replacement total at exactly 70.0. That makes him one of only seven retired center fielders who have ever crossed that 70-Win threshold. You know what we call those men? Hall of Famers. They’re all in – now that Beltrán has joined this club.
See how he runs — Unless you’re Rickey Henderson, base-running genius isn’t normally anyone’s ticket to the Hall of Fame. But it helped punch Beltrán’s ticket. He stole 312 bases in his career — and was thrown out in just 13.6 percent of his stolen-base attempts. You know how many players in history stole that many bases and had a better success rate (86.4 percent) than him? That would be none.
But also … he was one of the greatest switch-hitters who ever lived … and one of only five members of the 300-steal/400-homer club … not to mention one of just two outfielders who could say they won a Rookie of the Year award at age 22 (or younger) and played in an All-Star Game at 39 (or older). The other: a man named Mays … and with apologies to Reggie Jackson, Beltrán may have been the real Mr. October. He’s one of only two players who appeared in at least 40 postseason games and came away with an October batting average over .300, an on-base percentage over .400 and a slugging percentage over .600. It’s just him and Babe Ruth.
Beltrán’s path to election
The past decade has brought us such a flood of first-ballot Hall of Famers, you might not have noticed that we’d almost reached the point where there was no such thing as a fourth-ballot Hall of Famer anymore.
Beltrán was only the second player elected in the fourth round in the last four decades. The most recent before him: Mike Piazza in 2016. But to find the last fourth-rounder before Piazza, you have to go all the way back to Harmon Killebrew — in 1984.
And here’s one more perfect subplot from this Induction Day: In 2023, his first year on the ballot, Beltrán collected only 181 votes. That was tied for the sixth-most on that ballot. The player he was tied with? A fellow named Jeff Kent.
Jones’ Hall of Fame credentials
Andruw Jones’ 10-year stretch (1998-2007) of standout defense and power puts him in rare territory. (Brian Bahr/ Allsport)
It isn’t often that an outfielder graces our land with the eyeball-popping combo of leather-working brilliance and light-tower power of Andruw Jones. So why was he standing on that stage in Cooperstown? That about sums it up.
In his first 12 seasons in Atlanta, it’s possible Jones was the most spectacular defensive center fielder since Willie Mays? Mays himself told him that once. So that alone explains the rarified talents Jones flashed for so many great Braves teams for so many years.
He showed up in the big leagues at age 19, pounded two breathtaking World Series homers as a teenager in 1996, and it was clear from that moment that Jones wasn’t quite like everyone else. But it was his 10 special seasons from 1998 through 2007, at ages 21-30, that ultimately stamped his boarding pass to Cooperstown:
Home runs — averaged more than 34 a year
Gold Gloves — 10 in 10 years
Only three center fielders who ever lived have had a 10-season run like that: Mays … Griffey … and Jones, the pride of Curacao. But that isn’t all those three had in common.
The 400-Homer, 10-Gold Glove Club — This isn’t the time or place to talk about how Jones’ career unraveled after age 30. He still finished with 434 career homers and those 10 Gold Glove awards. And it won’t take long to recite the list of every outfielder in history with that many Gold Gloves and that many home run trots:
Mays … Griffey … and Jones. Sound familiar?
Or we could frame this a different way …
MOST SEASONS WITH GOLD GLOVE AND 30+ HR
(Outfielders only)
Willie Mays — 8
Barry Bonds — 7
Andruw Jones — 7
He led the Braves down many October roads — One more thing. Jones spent all those years stealing gappers out of the sky for Braves teams that won the NL East in each of his first 10 seasons — in support of the greatest pitching staff of his generation. What he did for those teams and those Cy Young winners was unique in the annals of baseball:
MOST OUTFIELD GOLD GLOVES FOR PLAYOFF TEAMS
Andruw Jones — 8
Torii Hunter — 6
Garry Maddox — 6
Jones’ path to election
The most unlikely Hall of Famer ever? That might just be Jones’ Cooperstown claim to fame.
In his first year on the ballot (2018), only 31 voters (7.3 percent) checked his name. That’s the lowest percentage in history by a player who eventually got elected by the writers.
But now let’s put this another way. That also means 391 voters didn’t vote for him that year. So could this Induction Day possibly have felt more unimaginable then? Jones was so far away from this moment then that even if he’d gotten 10 times as many votes, he still wouldn’t have had enough to get elected.
It’s fair to assume that at least some of those “no” voters — in 2018 and future years — took that stance because of his 2012 domestic-violence arrest, which would give anyone pause.
Incredibly, 18 players got more votes that year than Jones did. And if he’d gotten just 10 fewer votes, he’d never even have stayed alive for a second ballot, let alone gotten elected.
So what about that ballot debut suggested that by 2026, he’d find himself on that stage Sunday, holding up his plaque as 60 other living Hall of Famers welcome him to their exclusive little club?
Kent’s Hall of Fame credentials
Jeff Kent stands atop the leaderboard among second baseman in many offensive categories. (Tom Hauck / Allsport)
There’s a simple reason Jeff Kent gets to stand at that podium and deliver an emotional speech on Induction Sunday. Just draw a picture of a baseball bat. That covers it.
When he slipped his hand inside a glove and trotted to second base, there was nothing special about that portion of Kent’s repertoire. But when he showed up in the batter’s box, he spent 17 seasons doing things that can be summed up with one powerful word: Historic.
How historic was he? Take a look at where he ranks in history among every player whose primary position was second base:
Most HR — Kent (377)
Most RBIs — Kent (1,518)
Most 100-RBI seasons — Kent (eight)
Highest slugging pct.* — Kent (.500)
(*in live-ball era — since 1920)
And the deeper you dig, the more Kent towers over the entire population of modern second basemen:
Six straight seasons with 20 homers and 100 RBIs — Kent ripped off this streak in his first six seasons in San Francisco, where his career took a step toward a level of greatness that led him to this Induction Day. No other second baseman has had more than four 20/100 seasons in a row. No other second baseman in the Hall even made it to three in a row. But Kent did it every year, from 1997-2002.
Nine straight seasons with 20 homers and 90 RBIs — This is another streak so historic that the next-longest streak by any other second baseman in history is only five, by Chase Utley.
Over the 11 seasons from 1997-2007, he averaged 26 homers and 103 RBIs, while slugging over .500 — How astonishing is that? Only one active second baseman has even had one season like that (Ozzie Albies, in 2023).
No National League second baseman has won an MVP award since Kent did (in 2000) — But you know what’s even more impressive? He won that MVP trophy while playing for a team that had Barry Bonds on it! Who ever would have guessed back then that Kent would make it to the Hall of Fame before Bonds did?
Kent’s path to Cooperstown
What else separates Kent from Jones and Beltrán? It isn’t just their position. Unlike the two center fielders on the stage, Kent wasn’t elected to the Hall by the BBWAA. He was elected last December by the 16-member Contemporary Baseball Era Committee. (Full disclosure: The Athletic’s Tyler Kepner and I were members of that committee.)
Kent debuted on the writers’ ballot in 2014. His timing couldn’t have been worse. The ballot was so overloaded with star power back then that in his first year, there were 14 other players who are now in the Hall, plus Bonds, Roger Clemens, Mark McGwire, Curt Schilling and Don Mattingly.
So Kent spent 10 frustrating seasons on the writers’ ballot but never came close to being elected — peaking at 46.5 percent of the vote in his final year. He was still more than 100 votes short of election then.
But the reason the Hall’s era committees exist is to give players like Kent a second look, from a panel made up of Hall of Fame players, executives and writers/historians. Those committees often take up the cause of players they view as historically worthy, when compared with their era and their peers at their position.
So last December, Kent became the only player elected by that committee – an honor that left him overflowing with tears and emotion he’d never allowed himself to show as a player. On Sunday, those tears will flow again in Cooperstown, on an Induction Day that he and his fellow inductees waited a lifetime for.