Baseball Hall of Fame: Carlos Beltrán will wear Mets cap on Cooperstown plaque

The 2026 Baseball Hall of Fame class is Carlos Beltrán, Andruw Jones and Jeff Kent. As all baseball fans know, something fun about the Hall of Fame plaques hanging in Cooperstown is each player is wearing a baseball cap, most of which depict team logos. Cap selection for Hall of Fame plaques ranges from easy-and-obvious to not making a choice (a blank cap, for example, is on plaques of Greg Maddux, Mike Mussina and Roy Halladay). 

The selections for this class are easy and- obvious with Jones and pretty darn easy with Kent and the Giants. Beltrán, though, was a bit tougher. He played seven seasons for both the Mets and Royals. There was an argument for a blank cap, but instead it'll be the Mets, the Hall announced Tuesday.

"I didn't do this alone," Beltrán said in a statement. "Every team I played for shaped my journey, and I'm grateful to all of them. With the Mets, I experienced my greatest individual growth and success. I'm honored that my Hall of Fame plaque will feature the Mets logo, and I'm proud that every team I played for will be listed on the plaque."  

In Beltrán's seven years with the Mets, he hit .280/.369/.500 with 31.1 WAR, 878 hits, 208 doubles, 17 triples, 149 home runs, 559 RBI, 551 runs and 100 steals. In his seven with the Royals, he hit .287/.352/.483 with 24.8 WAR, 899 hits, 156 doubles, 45 triples, 123 home runs, 516 RBI, 546 runs and 164 steals.

He'll join just Mike Piazza and Tom Seaver as the only players to wear a Mets cap in Cooperstown.

After his election, Beltrán said he'd sit down with his family to discuss the plaque, but the inductees don't actually get to make that decision.

"The Hall of Fame provides guidance to each new inductee as to which logo, if any, may be represented on the cap of his plaque," Jon Shestakofsky, Baseball Hall of Fame vice president of communications and content, told CBS Sports last year. "While the Hall of Fame has the final say as to which logo is depicted, we work with the electee to reach an appropriate conclusion that accurately reflects the new electee's career in the game. All teams, however, are listed in the text of the plaque." 

Beltrán has also been a special assistant to the general manager of the Mets since 2023, though that doesn't have any bearing on his Hall of Fame plaque selection, especially with the Hall of Fame involved in the decision-making process.

The three former players will be officially inducted into the Hall this summer.