The Case for Andruw Jones

Don’t kid yourself, you never even once considered Andruw Jones as a Hall of Famer. Never once. Spending the majority of your career in the shadow of a first balloter, who shares the same surname, Chipper Jones. Andruw enjoyed one of the highest peaks in baseball, followed shortly by a deteriorating body, sharply after he turned 30.

Jones was no flash in the pan, though he is often thought of one. Bursting onto the scene at age 19, and playing 11 full seasons for the Braves, I hope you don’t dismiss me when I tell you that Jones has a legitimate claim at being greatest fielding, center fielder of the 90s and 00s. Think about who else is up there, Ken Griffey Jr., Jim Edmonds and Tori Hunter, and Andruw Jones was the best fielder out of all of them.

You combine this with his 62.8 WAR and 434 homeruns and all the sudden Jones is an intriguing candidate. Let’s dive a little deeper.

From 1998-2007 only two men achieved more WAR than Jones, two of the greatest players ever, Alex Rodriguez and Barry Bonds. Though the Gold Glove is vastly overrated as an award, Jones won it every year from 98-07, one of six total outfielders to win 10 total Gold Gloves, all the others are Hall of Famers, Willy Mays, Al Kaline, Ken Griffey Jr., Roberto Clemente and future Hall of Famer Ichiro. Jones shallow play in center field, based on the philosophy that a hitter has to earn a hit, no bloopers, only extra base-hits, is rarely seen today or practically ever. Jones defensive prowess is often forgotten, which is nothing short a Shakespearean tragedy. Why though? We can only speculate that grab bag of factors play into it.

The first being that sharp decline in the level of play after turning 30, and leaving the braves. He played pretty ineffectively in the final five seasons he played outside of Atlanta. The second being that he was often over shadowed by the other Braves he played with. Greg Maddux, Tom Glavine and John Smoltz all are Hall of Famers with fellow Jones, Chipper being a shoe-in this year. How many players are the fifth best player on their team and still get into Cooperstown? Tony Perez for the Big Red Machine and Tony Lazzeri on the ’27 Yankees are the only ones to come to mind. The last factor has to be that Andruw Jones was too good of a fielder. Jim Edmonds and Ken Griffey Jr. both made their name in the field for their fantastic diving grabs. Jones would make those same plays routinely, often standing underneath them for a can of corn, grab. We see the same argument when people discuss Derek Jeter’s overrated glove, saying that Jeter’s patented plays (excluding the flip) would be routine for a good fielder. Not necessarily saying that Griff and Edmonds weren’t good fielders, just that Jones was better.

Jones 24.1 defensive WAR is the best of all time from an outfielder, and 20th best all-time. The next closest outfielder? Willy Mays with 18.1 and that’s good for 64th best all time. Don’t believe me? Go look for yourself ( https://www.baseball-reference.com/leaders/WAR_def_career.shtml .) Worth noting that if you don’t include Jones final five seasons, which he put up a -2.1 dWAR, Jones would put find himself lodged nicely in between Adrian Beltre and Pee Wee Reese at 14th all-time.

In 2002, the BBWAA voted in Ozzie Smith on his first ballot for his incredible defensive prowess and for being regarded as the greatest infielder of all time. Yet, we are seeing Andruw Jones, the greatest fielding outfielder of all-time on the brinks of being put off of the ballot, because he currently polling at 5.3% and anything lower than 5% is banishment to the shadow realm. It would be downright ridiculous, to think that the “Wizard of Oz” was a better hitter than Jones, so why can’t people see that “The Curacao Kid” is being hazardously overlooked.

I guess voters just can’t overlook the intense drop off when Jones gained weight and turned 30, as if they hadn’t seen that before with the injury prone Griffey. Not that Jones and Griffey are on the same level of play, and had the same peak.

Hell, though. With the defensive numbers that Jones put up, matched with 400+ homeruns it should be a damn near felony for him to fall of the ballot this year. Jones is no stranger to this type of negligence as though he was thought as the fifth best player on those Braves teams he lead the team in WAR in ‘98, ‘99 (Chipper’s MVP season,) ’00, ’02 and ’05.

It’s just a shame is all, Andruw Jones will subjected to the same type of disrespect that Kenny Lofton and Jim Edmonds received. While those two names might not be Hall of Famers in your book, we can all agree that them getting kicked off the ballot, on their first year, is just blatant disrespect.

Voters only have ten spots on their ballot and with 60+% of voters using two spots on Clemens and Bonds every year while having to vote for the new comers every year, and the “spice of the year” vote (last year being Raines, this year being Edgar,) there isn’t a whole lot of room for Jones.

Would I vote for Andruw Jones? Yes, I would sacrifice someone who is more deserving like Chipper because he doesn’t need my vote to get in, just to keep Andruw on the ballot. Yes, I understand how messed up the system is that voters have to consciously do this.

Will Andruw get in this year? No. He probably will fall short of 5% and we will never hear or see him again. It’s a shame, he deserves more than this. Maybe he doesn’t deserve to be a Hall of Famer, but he at least deserves a deeper look from voters.

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