Alex Rodriguez explains why the Dodgers are a good fit for baseball
USA TODAY’s Ralphie Aversa talks with MLB legend Alex Rodriguez about the dominant nature of the Dodgers’ roster.
take sports seriously
On January 20, two exceptional baseball players were inducted into the Sports Hall of Fame, with Carlos Beltran and Andrew Jones becoming the seventh and eighth center fielders to qualify for Cooperstown.
Neither is generational, with the only title won by either player in a combined 37 seasons coming in 2017 when Beltrán was a part-time 40-year-old DH with the Houston Astros and a full-time illegal sign-stealing mastermind, but the July induction will prove they can cash in on the polls and overcome an early deficit.
Perhaps that will provide solace to those lurking a little further into the 2026 vote. So let’s take a look at the winners and losers of the 2026 Hall of Fame voting.
winner
Carlos Beltran
The idea that his role in the Astros’ sign-stealing scandal might influence Hall candidacy was laughable, given the Wild West atmosphere of high-tech cheating throughout Major League Baseball at the time.
No, Beltran qualified on his fourth try. This was a nice reward for a guy who played on several opposing Kansas City Royals teams and finished as a highly productive veteran hitter in places like New York, St. Louis, and Texas. Hopefully, Hall’s call will reopen the door to the manager’s office for a great baseball mind (and yes, one of the elite sign stealers, legal or not).
Andrew Jones
It’s proof that even if your professional life ends at 30, everything will be fine.
A genius in the truest sense of the word, Jones is the only player to win USA TODAY Sports’ Minor League Player of the Year award twice. At first glance, it might seem like the kind of honor you don’t want to earn twice, like a reinvitation to the Futures Game. And it makes more sense knowing that he was 18 and 19 years old when he got that nod, and in subsequent years he hit two home runs in Game 1 of the World Series.
He never lost his spark throughout his 20s, but after hitting an insane 51 home runs in 2005, he bounced around from Atlanta to Los Angeles (where the Dodgers were in the second year of his contract), the Texas, the White Sox, and finally the Yankees, before retiring from the game by age 35.
Perhaps his foul mouth turned out to be a turnoff for voters early on, as he was nominated on just 7.3% of ballots in his first year, barely passing the 5% needed to remain. Eventually, the vision of an ethereal boy permeated the hearts of voters.
Andy Pettit
The person admitted to using PEDs increased his vote share to 48.5%, which is remarkable in and of itself. And we note that his career ERA of 3.85 is the best of any BBWAA-selected pitcher and the second-best, only ahead of Jack Morris’ 3.90 mark.
Pettit’s 117 points are behind 87% of winners in Gaylord Perry Phil Niekro’s rent district, so the adjusted ERA treats Pettit a little better.
Sometimes, timing is everything. Pettit has been around long enough that young voters were probably in their teens when the Mitchell Report was released and were in grammar school when Pettit admitted to doping. But even older top men like Bob Costas have succumbed to Pettit’s desires, and on the January 20 Hall broadcast he said, “He says he only took HGH for an injury, and I believe him.”
Well, I had never heard that line before.
loser
Manny Ramirez
Speaking of steroid guys, Manny is currently removed from the writers’ vote after receiving votes from 38.8% of the electorate. While there are credible claims that Ramirez had a Hall-worthy career before becoming somehow involved with PEDs, his run-ins with MLB’s secret police tend to further displease voters.
If Barry Bonds is any indication, Ramirez, a man with 555 home runs, two World Series championships and 10 All-Star appearances, won’t get along any better with the schemers on the Erath committee.
batting average
This statistic was probably always overestimated, and has since been criticized more harshly than it probably deserves, as has public perception of Leonardo DiCaprio’s filmography.
And selecting Jones would be another blow to the measure of whether a player can actually hit.
Jones’ career average was .254, ranking him 217th.th His batting average is close to the .302 mark of many pitchers among Hall of Famers.
You say it’s not that bad, right? Now consider that Jones’ heyday was during one of the most offensively exciting eras in baseball. In 2001, while Barry Bonds hit 73 home runs, Jones’ batting average was .251, 13 points below the league average of .264. That’s like an All-Star player ostensibly in his prime hitting .231 today.
Indeed, Jones’ power, defense, WAR and everything else makes him worthy enough to be in the Hall of Fame, as determined by a narrow margin of voters. Times evolve, standards change, and admission prices change.
Still, it’s safe to assume that a Hall of Fame player at his position can hit a little.
ryan brown
Brown, a former MVP whose 47.7 WAR put him in Hall of Fame rental territory along with Jim Rice and Orlando Cepeda, was completely off the ballot, receiving just 15 votes, or 3.5%, falling short of the 5% needed to remain.
Sadly, Brown broke wraps when he tested positive during the 2011-12 offseason, but caught on by attacking a urine sample collector on defense and doing the ultimate surveillance in a Biogenesis game. Again, we cannot predict how voters will interpret the “integrity, sportsmanship, and character” factors in their polls.
