Beltran and Andruw Jones finally get their Cooperstown due

The Baseball Hall of Fame officially welcomed its 2026 class on Sunday in Cooperstown, and the headliners were two outfielders whose careers overlapped for years on some of the same rosters. Carlos Beltran got in on his 4th try on the BBWAA ballot with 84.2% of the vote, while Andruw Jones needed 9 tries and finally crossed the threshold at 78.4%. Jeff Kent rounded out the class via the Contemporary Baseball Era Committee.

What made both careers so tricky to evaluate in real time is exactly what Sunday's ceremony was built to correct. Neither guy ever won an MVP award, but both were consistently in the conversation for a decade-plus, which is its own kind of proof of sustained excellence rather than a single peak year.

Codify

@CodifyBaseball

MVP Votes, 2026 Hall Of Famers: Carlos Beltrán 2003 (9th) 2004 (12th) 2006 (4th) 2007 (20th) 2008 (21st) 2011 (20th) 2012 (26th) Andruw Jones 2000 (8th) 2002 (16th) 2003 (13th) 2005 (2nd) 2006 (11th) Jeff Kent 1997 (8th) 1998 (9th) 1999 (26th) 2000 (1st) 2002 (6th) 2004 (13th) 2005 (19th)

Beltran finished as high as 4th in MVP voting in 2006 and racked up votes in 7 different seasons between 2003 and 2012. Jones peaked at 2nd in 2005 off the back of a monster power year and picked up votes in 5 separate seasons around the turn of the century. That's the profile of a guy who was never the story of the season but was almost always part of it. Beltran's final numbers back it up: 2,725 hits, 435 home runs, 312 stolen bases, and a spot on the short list of players with 400-plus homers and 300-plus steals. Jones brought a different flavor of dominance, anchoring center field for 10 straight Gold Gloves from 1998 to 2007 while piling up 434 homers of his own.

Beat writers who covered both guys during their playing days got emotional watching them cross the finish line together. Mark Feinsand, who covered the Yankees beat during years both players spent time in pinstripes, made clear this wasn't just a professional milestone he was tracking from a distance.

Mark Feinsand

@Feinsand

I had an opportunity to cover both @carlosbeltran15 and @andruwjones25 during my years on the Yankees beat. I always enjoyed talking baseball and life with each of them -- and I still do. Proud to call them both friends and excited to see them inducted into the @baseballhall.

Jones' path to Cooperstown carried extra weight beyond the stat sheet. He became the first player born in Curaçao to be inducted, a moment he leaned into during his speech, calling it a bridge between the small island and the sport's biggest stage. Beltran, for his part, thanked Mets fans directly for sticking with him through the boos as well as the cheers, a nod to a career that wasn't always smooth even as the numbers piled up.

With Jeff Kent joining them via committee vote, the 2026 class is the smallest since 2022, but smallest doesn't mean lightest on star power. Beltran and Jones spent years getting overlooked for the top individual hardware while quietly building Hall-worthy resumes in plain sight. Sunday was the sport formally admitting it should've noticed sooner.