Carlos Beltrán and Andruw Jones, graceful center fielders and slugging stalwarts of the 2000s, were elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame on Tuesday in voting by the Baseball Writers’ Association of America. The pair will join Jeff Kent, a second baseman elected by an era committee last month, at the July 26 ceremony in Cooperstown, N.Y.
Beltrán was elected on his fourth ballot and Jones on his ninth, the duo finally breaking through in an election with only one newcomer, Cole Hamels, who cleared the necessary 5 percent to remain under consideration by the writers.
Candidates needed to be named on at least 319 of 425 ballots to reach the 75-percent threshold for election. Beltrán received 358 votes, for 84.2 percent, while Jones got 333 votes, for 78.4 percent. Of the remaining 25 candidates, Chase Utley led with 59.1 percent, clearing the halfway mark in his third appearance on the ballot.
Welcome to Cooperstown, @carlosbeltran15!https://t.co/Yf3ByOuAL2 pic.twitter.com/3sKEssE6uO
— National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum ⚾ (@baseballhall) January 20, 2026
Beltrán played for seven teams from 1998 through 2017, collecting 435 home runs and 312 stolen bases while excelling in the postseason, hitting .307/.412/.609 across 65 games. A Rookie of the Year for the Kansas City Royals in 1999, Beltrán won two Silver Slugger awards and three Gold Gloves.
Jones won 10 Gold Gloves, patrolling center field for the Atlanta Braves with such aplomb that Willie Mays once called him the best he ever saw at the position. Mays, Ken Griffey Jr. and Mike Schmidt are the only players besides Jones with 10 Gold Gloves and 400 homers, with Jones bashing 434 for five teams from 1996 through 2012.
Both Beltrán and Jones are 48 years old, born one day apart in April 1977. But Beltrán lasted much longer as a productive player, making his ninth and final All-Star team at 39 years old in 2016, four years after Jones’ final game in the majors.
Jones fell off sharply after leaving Atlanta, hitting .210 in his last five seasons and finishing with 1,933 hits, the fewest of any position player elected by the writers since Ralph Kiner in 1975. But he was so breathtaking as a Braves center fielder that voters eventually warmed to his case, which began in 2018 at just 7.3 percent.
Welcome to Cooperstown, @andruwjones25!https://t.co/yM4vo4J2ji pic.twitter.com/G5T1nBR9s4
— National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum ⚾ (@baseballhall) January 20, 2026
Beltrán made a stronger first impression in 2022 with 46.5 percent, a share that grew to 57.1 and 70.3 before this year’s victory. He might have been inducted already if not for his role in the Houston Astros’ sign-stealing scandal in 2017, his final season, when he won his only World Series championship.
The Hall of Fame instructs voters to consider character, integrity and sportsmanship, but Beltrán had already been punished in a different way, by losing his job as New York Mets manager in the wake of the revelations. He won the Roberto Clemente Award for community service in 2013 and runs an academy in his native Puerto Rico that emphasizes both sports and academics.
“There’s no doubt that in baseball you’re going to go through ups and downs — you’re going to make good decisions, so-so decisions, and also you’re gonna make bad decisions,” said Beltrán, who now works for the Mets as a special assistant.
“But at the same time, when I retired, I thought that everything that I built in the game of baseball, meaning like relationships and the good people that I was able to relate myself with, I thought that was going to be lost. Being back in the game of baseball, I still received love from the people. I still received love from players. The teammates that I had inside the clubhouse, they know the type of person that I am. But at the same time, I understand that that’s also a story that I have to deal with.”
Jones had a more troubling issue that may have delayed his election: On Christmas 2012, he was arrested in Atlanta on charges of domestic violence against his wife. By then, Jones had signed a contract with a team in Japan, where he played two seasons before retiring.
Beltran becomes the sixth Hall of Famer raised in Puerto Rico, after Roberto Alomar, Orlando Cepeda, Roberto Clemente, Edgar Martinez and Iván Rodriguez. Jones is now the first native of Curacao in the Hall.
Jones also gives the Braves an eighth Hall of Famer from their run of division titles from 1991 through 2005. He arrived in 1996 — the year after their lone championship — and joins Tom Glavine, Chipper Jones, Greg Maddux, Fred McGriff, John Smoltz, manager Bobby Cox and general manager John Schuerholz.
“We didn’t win that many championships, but we won our division every single year for 14 straight, and that’s what we built up,” Jones said. “We’ve always been trained to win the game, and after that, when your career is over, the consistency, the numbers that you put up, then you start (being considered for) the Hall of Fame. But one thing that Chipper said a long time ago, (he didn’t) think the Hall of Fame was going to be concluded without me being in it. And I feel his wish came true now.”
Utley, meanwhile, tallied fewer career hits than Jones but had a peak that few second basemen have matched. His growing support signals that voters may be reconsidering high-impact players whose overall numbers are lighter than many in Cooperstown.
That group would include Buster Posey, the three-time champion catcher for the San Francisco Giants who had only 1,500 hits but figures to make a strong showing in his ballot debut next winter.
PlayerVotesPercent
Carlos Beltrán
358
84.2
Andruw Jones
333
78.4
Chase Utley
251
59.1
Andy Pettitte
206
48.5
Félix Hernández
196
46.1
Alex Rodríguez
170
40
Manny Ramírez
165
38.8
Bobby Abreu
131
30.8
Jimmy Rollins
108
25.4
Cole Hamels
101
23.8
Dustin Pedroia
88
20.7
Mark Buehrle
85
20
Omar Vizquel
78
18.4
David Wright
63
14.8
Francisco Rodríguez
50
11.8
Torii Hunter
37
8.7
Ryan Braun
15
3.5
Edwin Encarnacíon
6
1.4
Shin-Soo Choo
3
0.7
Matt Kemp
2
0.5
Hunter Pence
2
0.5
Rick Porcello
2
0.5
Alex Gordon
1
0.2
Nick Markakis
1
0.2
Gio González
0
0
Howie Kendrick
0
0
Daniel Murphy
0
0
A pitcher with a short peak, former Seattle Mariners ace Félix Hernández, increased his percentage to 46.1 after debuting last year at 20.6 percent. Hamels, a World Series MVP for the Phillies with strikingly similar statistics to Hernández — but without a Cy Young Award — got 23.8 percent in his first time on the ballot.
All of the other first-timers fell off the ballot, including Ryan Braun, Edwin Encarnación, Alex Gordon and Matt Kemp. Manny Ramírez, a longtime force whose career was tainted by performance-enhancing drug suspensions, slipped off the ballot with 38.8 percent in his 10th appearance.
Thirteen players will return for another look by the writers: Bobby Abreu, Mark Buehrle, Hamels, Hernández, Torii Hunter, Andy Pettitte, Dustin Pedroia, Álex Rodríguez, Francisco Rodríguez, Jimmy Rollins, Utley, Omar Vizquel and David Wright.
Players not elected by the BBWAA can eventually be considered by a panel of Hall of Famers, executives and historians. Kent, the career leader in home runs by a second baseman, peaked at 46.5 percent on the writers’ ballot but earned election in December with 14 of 16 votes from the Contemporary Baseball Era Committee.