Carlos Beltrán is elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame

After the flurry of insane free agent activity at the end of last week, baseball seems to be taking a collective breather. Or perhaps, in the aftermath of said insanity, teams are setting up the barricades waiting for the impending lockout of 2026. At any rate, not much is happening at the moment. Something of a lull.

I’m kicking around some ideas for content between now and the early part of spring training. No guarantees, though.

So for today, let’s talk Hall of Fame. Carlos Beltrán was elected on Tuesday with just over 84 percent of the vote. Andruw Jones is in as well at over 78 percent.

Drop your eyes to the bottom of that list. While I’m delighted Beltrán crossed the threshold on his fourth attempt, I’m beyond thrilled that Alex Gordon picked up a vote. Sure, it’s meaningless. Yet it’s important. It’s an acknowledgment from a lone voter that yes, Gordon did have a career worthy of recognition. He’s not a Hall of Famer, but his story and that of the Royals of the 2010’s are inextricably linked, both fraught with difficulties yet somehow successful.

I have zero issue with a voter who doesn’t have a full ballot of 10 throwing a vote to a player who deserves some kind of recognition. It’s quite an accomplishment to even be on the ballot for the Hall. It’s nice when a player who clearly isn’t going to get enshrined can pick up a vote.

For a while I was worried that Gordon would get shut out. Gordon’s vote does not appear in Ryan Thibodaux’s tracker. It may be revealed over the next couple of weeks. Some writers send their ballots to Thibodaux’s team after the vote is announced. Some writers chose to let the BBWAA website publish their vote. That happens in two weeks. Maybe we will learn then who voted for A1.

If I had a vote, I would’ve put a check next to Gordon’s name and not thought twice about it.

This was the box score from Beltrán’s major league debut with the Royals, a 16-6 shellacking of the Oakland A’s at Kauffman Stadium on September 14, 1998:

Whew. That’s a real “Remember Some Guys” kind of box score. Or, if you’re like me when thinking of the Royals of the late 1990’s, who the hell wants to remember that?. Dee Brown? Larry Sutton? Shane Halter? Cripes. I’m always loath to poke fun at anyone who played in a Major League Baseball game because it takes some sort of talent just to get that far, but what an all-around uninspiring collection of names. Allard Baird and David Glass conspired to damn near destroy this franchise. The best player on that ‘98 team was José Offerman who hit .315/.403/.438 and posted a bWAR of 5.3. He left for Boston after that season as a free agent. Offerman, as I like to remind everyone, is the all-time Royals franchise leader in batting average with a career .306 mark while with the Royals. George Brett hit .305.

Beltrán played for seven different teams over his 20 year career. He made most of his appearances with the Mets, with the Royals a close second.

The Royals, coming off a surprisingly successful 2003 season that saw them finish above .500, were thinking playoffs when 2004 opened. Things quickly went south. Beltrán, playing his final season before becoming eligible for free agency was suddenly a hot commodity.

In one of the worst trades in franchise history and the beginning of the end of the Allard Baird era, Beltrán was shipped to the Houston Astros in a three team trade that saw the Royals bring in third baseman Mark Teahen and pitcher Mike Wood from Oakland, along with catcher John Buck from Houston. Teahen had two decent seasons with the Royals, but was washed by his age 25 season and was out of the league by 2011. Buck had a few decent seasons behind the plate for the Royals, but was non-tendered after the 2009 season as the Glass Family didn’t want to pay him around the $4 million or so he would’ve earned as a third year arbitration-eligible player.

The Hall has some say in the matter, but I completely believe he’s going in as a Met. As he should. The Royals will be a large part of that plaque.

After Beltrán was traded to the Astros, he made it to October for the first time in his career. Although Houston fell short in the NLCS, it wasn’t because Beltrán failed to deliver. To the contrary, he had a postseason for the ages, going 20-46 with eight home runs, 21 runs scored, six steals and 14 RBIs in two series.

In 65 postseason games, Beltrán hit .307/.412/.609.

Sadly, you cannot talk about Beltrán’s postseason excellence without at least acknowledging his primary role in the Astro’s 2017 sign stealing cheating scandal. That’s Beltrán's only World Series title and it’s a heavily, heavily tainted one. There will be quite the discourse around how Beltrán has seemingly been forgiven while players like Barry Bonds and Roger Clemens are on the outside. Personally, I would’ve voted for all three. The Hall is a messy institution and it will be that way forever. I will point out that Bonds and Clemens were gaining traction and if the Hall hadn’t altered the time a player spends on a ballot—down to 10 years from 15—I feel as though both would’ve gotten in as the electorate evolved.

The Royals had a generational talent come through their system in the late ‘90s, and they stumbled into an outfield of Johnny Damon, Jermaine Dye and Beltrán along with Mike Sweeney at the turn of the century and still couldn’t win ballgames. That, and the trade that netted nothing, means that the legacy Beltrán left in Kansas City is much smaller than players like Eric Hosmer and Mike Moustakas. Championships and winning teams matter.

Still, Beltrán is one of the all-time franchise greats. He’s eighth in Royals history in bWAR at 24.8, just ahead of Lorenzo Cain. He’s 14th all-time in both on-base percentage and fifth in slugging. Beltrán is 11th in runs scored and 16th in total hits.

The Beltrán game I will always remember is Opening Day 2004. As I wrote above, the Royals had high hopes for that season. Against the White Sox that afternoon, they fell behind, trailing 7-3 going into the ninth. The Royals rallied, though and on a Mendy López pinch-hit, three-run home run (yes, a Mendy López home run), they tied the game. An Ángel Berroa single brought Beltrán to the plate.

Beltrán bashed a walkoff two-run home run. In the baseball wilderness from 1986 to 2013, I believe that was the most euphoric Kauffman Stadium ever was. It was a moment I’ll never forget.

What a great player and a deserving Hall of Famer.