During the time they were competing center-fielders, Carlos Beltrán hit one more home run (435) than Andruw Jones. But the latter won seven more Gold Gloves.
Born one day apart in 1977, they were elected to the Hall of Fame together this week – filling a void that has surrounded their position: just two of the 24 primary center-fielders in Cooperstown broke into the big leagues after 1952.
Only Kirby Puckett, elected in 2001, and Ken Griffey, Jr., elected 15 years later, were regular center-fielders who found their way into the hallowed Hall in the last half-century.
Until now.
Beltrán, a svelte switch-hitter who played for seven teams during a 20-year career, and Jones, whose teenaged exploits stamped him as a star before he reached U.S. voting age, won easy victories in the annual balloting of the Baseball Writers Association of America.
Three New Members
With a minimum of 75 per cent required for election, Beltrán got 84.2 per cent and Jones 78.4 per cent. When they are enshrined, along with Eras Committee choice Jeff Kent, Hall of Fame membership will swell to 354.
Jones, whose share of the vote increased by a record 12.1 per cent over last year, drew only 7.3 per cent of the vote – barely beyond the 5 per cent threshold for elimination – in 2018, his first year on the ballot.
“You play to help your team win championships,” he said on MLB Network immediately after the announcement of his election. “I just wanted to be the best at my position.”
He was: Jones, Mays, and Griffey, Jr. are the only center-fielders with at least 10 Gold Gloves.
The first native of Curacao to reach Cooperstown, he helped Atlanta win division titles in each of his first 10 seasons. Before his induction, he’s stay in the public eye as manager of the Netherlands team in the World Baseball Classic. Beltran, managing Team Puerto Rico, will be one of his WBC dugout opponents.
The three-man Class of 2026 is one of the smallest over the decade. Just two were chosen in 2016 and 2023. Five men were elected last year.
Ten Straight Golds
Jones will join the only other four outfielders who won 10 straight Gold Gloves: Willie Mays, Roberrto Clemente, Griffey, Jr., and Ichiro Suzuki, elected last year by near-unanimous vote.
He’s in an even more exclusive club: players who homered in their first two World Series at-bats. Gene Tenace did it first, way back in 1972.
Jones, who connected for the Braves against the Yankees on Oct. 20, 1996, was just 19 at the time, making him the youngest man to homer in the World Series.
When he hit 51 home runs in 2005, the rifle-armed outfielder landed on top of the Atlanta charts for most homers in a season. Matt Olson has since passed him with 54.
In the field, nobody surpasses Jones. Both Mays and long-time Braves manager Bobby Cox called him the best center-fielder they ever saw.
Known for playing shallow and racing back the second a ball came his way, his 54.5 WAR (wins against replacement) with the Braves from 1998-2006 was third among position players, trailing only Alex Rodriguez (70.6) and Barry Bonds (67.6), who combined for six MVP awards during that span.
According to MLB.com columnist Sarah Langs, Jones had a peak seven-year WAR of 46.4, ahead of the 44.6 average of the 19 incumbent Hall of Fame center-fielders.
Even more impressive was his lifetime 24.4 defensive WAR, as calculated by Baseball-Reference.com. The site reported that the 26.7 defensive WAR recorded by Jones from 1997-2007 was 10.2 above any other defender at any position during that decade. Hall of Fame catcher Ivan (Pudge) Rodriguez was second.
Baseball Reference also said Jones had 230 total zone runs, the most by any center-fielder since the creation of the stat in 1953. Mays, by contrast, had 176.
Only Mays and Clemente – two first-ballot Hall of Famers — had more than the 10 Gold Gloves of Andruw Jones.
And Mays, Griffey, and Mike Schmidt were the only Cooperstown incumbents before Jones with at least 10 Gold Gloves and 400 home runs.
Major Vote Leap
After polling 66.2 per cent from the writers last year, Jones made the greatest one-year climb in the history of the Hall of Fame voting. But he came in with a reputation for climbing – mounting outfield walls to snag potential home runs. Hall of Fame pitchers Greg Maddux, Tom Glavine, and John Smoltz all claim they wouldn’t have reached Cooperstown without him.
Beltrán was a Gold Glove outfielder too. The sixth Puerto Rican to reach Cooperstown, he won the award three times, along with nine trips to the All-Star Game.
He was one of five major-leaguers with 500 doubles, 400 home runs, and 300 stolen bases, along with Bonds, Rodriguez, Mays, and Andre Dawson.
Since Mays retired in 1973, Griffey and Kirby Puckett had been the only Hall of Fame center fielders.
Beltrán, who polled 70.3 per cent of the votes for the Cooperstown Class of 2025, was on the ballot for the fourth time, as opposed to nine for Jones.
That ballot had 28 players, equally distributed between returnees and newcomers.
Had they arrived several years later, Jones and Beltran would have made millions more. Beltran, who played for seven teams, peaked in pay in 2010, when he earned $19,401,569 from the New York Mets. Jones once made $21.4 million in a season from the Los Angeles Dodgers, one of his five teams in 17 seasons.
Along with Kent, the two outfielders will be inducted into the Hall of Fame in the open field behind Clark Sports Center in Cooperstown on July 26.