Carlos Beltran will have to wait at least another year for his chance to be enshrined in Cooperstown after he missed out on being in the class of 2025 Baseball Hall of Fame inductees that was announced on Tuesday night.
And one of his former managers isn’t thrilled.
Beltran, who played 20 years in MLB and spent time with the Mets, Royals, Yankees, Cardinals, Astros, Rangers and Giants, received 70.3 percent of the vote (277 of 294 votes) from the Baseball Writers Association of America Hall of Fame voters.
The threshold that needed to be reached was 75 percent of the vote.
This marks the third time that Beltran had been on the ballot and saw him inch closer to becoming immortalized in Cooperstown, after receiving 57.1 percent in 2024 and 46.5 percent in 2023.
Beltran’s legacy took a hit when he was the only player publicly named in MLB’s investigation into the Astros’ 2017 sign-stealing scandal.
His involvement ended up costing him the Mets managerial job in 2020.
Former Mets manager Terry Collins took issue with those still holding the sign-stealing scandal over Beltran’s head and using it to justify keeping him out of the Hall of Fame.
“This Astros thing has gotten out of control now. The Hall of Fame is filled with guys who knew what pitches were coming at certain times, so I’m a little tired of hearing him being held accountable,” Collins said on SNY following the 2025 Hall of Fame announcement. “He wasn’t even a starting player. It’s not like he benefited from what was going on. I think he’s being overly penalized. He lost the managerial job because of this. He’s paid his price. He’s a Hall of Fame player and he needs to be in the Hall of Fame.”
Beltran is viewed as one of the best switch-hitting outfielders ever and ended his career with 435 home runs and 1,587 RBIs while posting a .279 batting average.
Some of his best years came in a Mets uniform, where he spent seven seasons and helped the team reach the NLCS in 2006, a year where he hit a career-best 41 home runs with 115 RBIs and scored 127 runs during the regular season.
With the Mets, Beltran hit .280 /.369/.500 while adding 149 home runs, 559 RBIs and 100 stolen bases.
He added 56 homers in three seasons with the Yankees in the twilight of his career.
