Will Hall of Fame Finally Call for Yankees Legend?

When the 2026 class for the National Baseball Hall of Fame is announced, expect former New York Yankees outfielders Carlos Beltran and Andruw Jones to be selected for enshrinement.

That's an honor that could be coming in the not-so-distant future for former Yankees left-hander Andy Pettitte.

This is the eighth year Pettitte is on the ballot. With more than 200 votes made public, Pettitte is trending at 56%. Yes, that is far below the 75% needed for induction. But it's also way up from last year, when he appeared on just 27.9% of ballots.

Pettitte's Hall of Fame case is perplexing.

Perplexing Candidacy

Yes, he was a three-time All-Star. But the southpaw recorded just two 20-win seasons in his 18-year career. He never led the league in ERA, innings pitched or strikeouts. And he never won a Cy Young Award.

While his 256 career wins are impressive, he sports a pedestrian 3.85 ERA.

However to rule out Pettitte based on those benchmarks would be to do a disservice to his exemplary postseason stats.

Postseason Success

The lefty helped Yankees win five World Series titles as part of the "Core Four" with Derek Jeter, Jorge Posada and Mariano Rivera. As a result, Pettitte holds the records for most postseason wins (19), innings pitched (276.2) and starts (44).

Former New York Yankees left-hander Andy Pettitte — Aug 9, 2025; Bronx, New York, USA; Former New York Yankees pitcher Andy Pettitte at Old Timer’s Day at Yankee Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Wendell Cruz-Imagn Images | Wendell Cruz-Imagn Images

Will that be enough to get Pettitte into Cooperstown? Next year will be his ninth on the ballot and players fall off after 10 seasons.

A pair of former Yankees headlined the 2025 Hall of Fame class: Outfielder Ichiro Suzuki and left-hander CC Sabathia, both of whom were elected in their first year on the ballot.

CC To The Rescue?

In fact, Sabathia could be a big part of the reason why Pettitte is getting more Hall of Fame consideration. Consider their career stats:

Sabathia: 251 wins, 3.74 ERA , 62.3 WAR, 3577.1 innings, 1.259 WHIP, 561 games.

Pettitte: 256 wins, 3.85 ERA, 60.2 WAR, 3316 innings, 1.351 WHIP, 531 games.

Both pitchers had five top-10 finishes in Cy Young voting but Sabathia won the award win 2007.

Of course, Sabathia was more of a strikeout artist, topping 200 three times andranking 18th all-time with 3,093 whiffs.

The other mark on Pettitte is his admission of using performance enhancing-drugs to recover from an elbow injury.

Is Pettitte's postseason success enough to overcome the PED problem and lack of individual regular-season achievements?

We'll know for sure in January of 2028.

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