Maybe we should start talking about this now. There is at least a chance that Carlos Beltran will receive the 75 percent of votes needed to be inducted into the Hall of Fame as early as next Tuesday. And when that happens, if not now, then in a few years, it will be most interesting to see how Mets fans react.
As of Tuesday, the Cooperstown Tracker, faithfully run by the great Ryan Thibodeau (Bluesky's @notmrtibbs.com), found that 37.8 percent of voting bodies had released their ballots, with two candidates seeking office. predicted virtual shoe-ins for: Ichiro Suzuki (100 percent so far) and former Yankee CC Sabathia (92.6 percent).
Billy Wagner, who was nominated by the Mets along with four other teams, also looks like a pretty good bet to earn honors on the final ballot this summer. He's sitting at 84.5 percent (though he dipped slightly last year to 73.8 percent).
So far, Beltran is the only player sitting north of the cut line at 79.1%, while Andruw Jones is just south of that at 74.3%. Beltran finished last year at 57.1 percent, but we can infer two things from these overall trends.
