During his playing career, Carlos Beltrán had pretty much all he needed for a Hall of Fame resume. And yet, it'll be a struggle to get in. I do think there's a chance, though. And we'll get to that. First, the resume.
The nine-time All-Star won a Rookie of the Year, three Gold Gloves and two Silver Sluggers for seven teams, most prominently the Royals, Mets and Astros. During the prime of his career, he felt like a Hall of Famer. When he hit free agency, he was the biggest free agent. It all looked right.
In terms of numbers, Beltrán was kind of a hybrid between a compiler and peak candidate. His peak was great, but not other-worldly, and his compiling was good but not elite. He ended his 20-year career with a slash line of .279/.350./486 (119 OPS+) with 2,725 hits, 565 doubles, 435 home runs, 1,587 RBI and 1,582 runs. Only 39 players have ever gotten to 1,500/1,500 RBI/runs. He also stole 312 bases. Players with more than 400 home runs and 300 stolen bases? Beltrán, Barry Bonds, A-Rod, Willie Mays and Andre Dawson.
The WAR and JAWS numbers for Beltrán are very good, even if they leave him below the average. Of the 19 Hall of Fame center fielders, Beltrán's WAR (70.1) would rank below average, but barely. He's eighth, too, meaning the curve here is badly skewed by the top-heavy position (Mays and Ty Cobb have more than 150 WAR while Mike Trout's 85.2 ranks fifth, for example). In JAWS, Beltrán is ninth (at 57.3) and below the average number for current Hall of Fame center fielders, but, again, Mays and Cobb just wreck the curve.
Let's do this: The only center fielders in history with more WAR than Beltrán are Mays, Cobb, Tris Speaker, Mickey Mantle, Trout, Ken Griffey Jr. and Joe DiMaggio. Is it a crime to not be those guys? Below Beltrán are Kenny Lofton (woefully underrated), Duke Snider, Dawson and Richie Ashburn.
The postseason numbers for Beltrán are sparkling, too. In 65 playoff games, he hit .307/.412/.609 with 15 doubles, a triple, 16 homers, 42 RBI, 45 runs and 11 steals.
Of course, we know the issue with Beltrán and it's the sign-stealing scandal with the 2017 Astros. In fact, he was reportedly a ring-leader, to the point that Brian McCann and other players were said to have fruitlessly tried to stop him.
For those interested in more numbers and/or more details on the sign-stealing thing, I did a deep dive on everything last year. Not much has changed.
Something that has changed is we know how Beltrán fared his first time around in the voting: 46.5%.
Heading into last year's vote, I suspected that Beltrán didn't have much of a chance. It was the intersection of 1) a very good Hall resume that wasn't a slam-dunk for many people; 2) "first ballot," which is still held more sacred for many voters; 3) the scandal.
The more years removed from the sign-stealing scandal, I suspect the less and less it'll move the needle. There will certainly be hard-liners who will never vote for Beltrán (or Jose Altuve, but we don't need to deal with that for a while), but I also don't think this is viewed as a PED-level offense. Beltrán got 10.8% more of the vote than A-Rod last season, for example, and A-Rod's numbers are inner-circle, all-time elite. Plus, it was A-Rod's second ballot and Beltrán's first.
This second ballot will be pretty telling in Beltrán's chances. If we set the scandal aside, it's possible there are a handful of voters out there who simply didn't vote for Beltrán last season because they didn't think his numbers were first ballot-worthy. There's also a group of new (usually more new-school) voters voting for the first time (I'm getting mine next year and I'm a yes for Beltrán).
This is to say that I think Beltrán's vote total naturally climbs every voting cycle.
Ryan Thibodaux's ballot tracking shows that Beltrán has already gained 10 votes from returning voters and he's polling over 66%. If the public vs. private split is about the same as last year, it seems like we're currently looking at something like the high-50s in vote percentage for Beltrán this time around and I think that's a big positive for him. I'd say if he gets around 55%, there's cause for optimism.
The biggest thing these next few voting cycles for Beltrán is to not see stagnation. A-Rod only added 1.4% in his second ballot. Barry Bonds and Roger Clemens plateaued multiple times. Other times, we've seen players steadily rise until induction.
My hunch on Carlos Beltrán is he'll be in the latter group, it just might take a few extra years due to the 2017 Astros' sign-stealing operation.
