On Tuesday night the baseball world was introduced to the entire Cooperstown class of 2026 after the BBWAA Hall of Fame voting results were officially revealed.
Joining the Contemporary Baseball Era Committee’s selection of Jeff Kent earlier this winter are a pair of outfielders in Andruw Jones and most notably to Royals fans, Carlos Beltrán.
In his fourth year on the ballot, Beltrán entered the evening having accumulated 70.3% of the vote last year and seemed to be trending in the direction of his “punishment” being over for his ties to the Houston Astros cheating scandal in the late 2010s.
And that was officially confirmed after he ended the night as the leading vote getter amongst the participating writers, racking up 84.2% of support.
While arguably best known for his time after his opening career years in Kansas City (and a quick half season stop in Houston in 2004), when he took his talents to Queens to suit up for the New York Mets, there’s no denying that he built a foundation for a Hall of Fame career when calling Kauffman Stadium home.
And now, the world class center fielder will forever be enshrined in Cooperstown. At the same time the Royals will finally have another prominent name to discuss when talking about Hall-of-Fame players who took the field wearing their uniform.
Carlos Beltrán’s Hall of Fame induction gives Royals much needed boost in Cooperstown representation
Again given that none of his nine All-Star nods, three Gold Glove Awards or two Silver Slugger Awards came during his time as a Royal between 1998 and half way through 2004, it seemed clear as day that Beltrán wouldn’t be entering Cooperstown donning a Royals cap.
That being said, apart from the likes of George Brett (arguably the greatest Royals player of all-time) Beltrán holds the most years played in Kansas City of anyone in the Hall of Fame.
In his parts of seven seasons with the Royals, Beltrán certainly started with a bang after making his debut in 1998 and slashing .276/.317/.466 with seven RBI in just 14 games. In 1999, still holding his rookie status, he took things up a notch, slashing .293/.337/.454 with 22 HR, 108 RBI, 27 stolen bases and a 4.7 bWAR. This saw him capture his first piece of hardware, winning AL Rookie of the Year nearly unanimously.
He’d end up playing 795 games with Kansas City, slashing .287/.352/.483 with 899 hits,123 HR, 516 RBI and 164 SB while accumulating 24.8 bWAR.
Beltrán is now one of five Royals players to enter Cooperstown and along with Brett, he’s the only other one to have played more than one season in Kansas City during his career.
While Harmon Killebrew, Gaylord Perry and Orlando Cepeda certainly contributed mightily to the game of baseball during their careers, they weren’t exactly known as Royals stewards during their time in Major League Baseball.
The official induction date for Beltrán and the rest of the class of 2026 will take place on July 26 in Cooperstown, NY.
‘ The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties ’
‘ Some details of this article were extracted from the following source kingsofkauffman.com ’
