KANSAS CITY, Mo. — A former Royal has a chance at baseball immortality.
Former Royals player Carlos Beltran will be on the 2023 Baseball Writers’ Association of America Hall of Fame ballot this year.
Former Twins shortstop J.J. Hardy, Tigers Francisco Rodriguez and Jhonny Peralta, alongside 2012 Cy Young winner R.A. Dickey and World Series winners Mike Napoli, Jayson Werth and Matt Cain join Beltran among the 14 first year candidates to be eligible for the Hall of Fame.
They will join Alex Rodriguez, Scott Rolen, Todd Helton, Gary Sheffield and Jeff Kent among the more notable names on the ballot.
Beltran will have 10 years to stay on the ballot unless he gets under 5% of the vote at any point during the process.
To make the Hall of Fame, a player needs to be on 75% of all ballots.
Beltran began his career with the Royals, spending his first six and a half seasons as the team's primary centerfielder from 1998 to his midseason trade to the New York Mets in 2004.
During his time with the Royals, Beltran hit .287/.352/.483, smashing 123 home runs and collecting nearly 900 hits and over 500 RBIs while wearing the blue KC hat.
His overall numbers, especially his advanced numbers, are seen as hall of fame worthy. According to Baseball-Reference, his JAWS, which is a metric developed by sabermetrician Jay Jaffe as a way to measure a player's Hall of Fame worthiness, is ninth highest of all-time among centerfielders. All ahead of him are in the Hall of Fame.
Additionally, his similarity scores as a hitter compares to Andre Dawson, Billy Williams and Al Kaline. All three are in the Hall of Fame.
However, his career is shrouded in controversy. During his last season as a player with the Houston Astros, he was named by MLB commissioner Rob Manfred Jr. as among one of the main people involved in the sign-stealing scandal that helped the Astros win the 2017 World Series. He was the only player named in the report by Manfred.
All eligible BBWAA voters have a deadline of Dec. 31 to submit their ballots. the results will be announced in late January.
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