Atlanta Braves: why Andruw Jones is not a Hall of Famer

This is gonna hurt… former Atlanta Braves’ CF, Andruw Jones does not deserve to be in the Hall of Fame.

Last year, Andruw Jones exceeded the 5% threshold to remain on the Hall of Fame ballot in 2020. This means his career will once again be picked apart and rehashed. We will get to re-live the great years with the Atlanta Braves, the disaster in Los Angeles, and the service-able platoon years.

Andruw garnered a mere 7.5% of the vote in 2018 and the outlook is bleak for one of the game’s great defensive center fielders.

I don’t want to do this, but I’m going to run through a few (just a few) reasons why Andruw is not worthy of enshrinement in the Hall of Fame.  I hope you will share your thoughts and disagreements with me in the comments.

So, let’s start with this: I love Andruw Jones. He is a Hall of Famer in my book. I was 11-years old during the 1996 World Series, I wanted to be Andruw Jones, or at least best friends.

Now that is out of the way…

When discussing Hall of Fame qualifications, something that often gets mentioned is longevity. Longevity is about more than simply compiling statistics, that is merely a by-product.

Andruw Jones signed the fifth highest contract in Major League Baseball at the time, with an average salary of $18MM with the Dodgers. Thanks to Jones’ steep decline (once he signed his big contract) the Dodgers essentially put $36 million in a barrel and lit it on fire.

Jones was only 30 years old at the time he signed his deal. The $18.1 million got the Dodgers a .156 avg with 4 HRs.  Andruw’s lack of longevity served as a detriment to the team that paid him all of that money.

The Dodgers had serious buyer’s remorse and arranged for some deferred payments and a buyout. They were free of him. It was a very disappointing situation.

Jones moved on to the Rangers and spent the rest of his early to mid-thirties as a platoon player. That is not something you get to say about many Hall of Fame players.

Andruw Jones went from being known as one of the best defensive-center fielders in the game to being a below average defender by age 31. There was nothing left of the old Andruw Jones, he had simply morphed into an old Andruw Jones.

For his career, Andruw had a .254 AVG with a .337 OBP. These numbers aren’t screaming Hall of Fame. He had some good offensive seasons with a few great ones. He crept above .300 once in his career with a .303. Outside of that he never hit above .277.

Outside of the home runs, his numbers are very similar to another Hall of Famer, which we’ll look at next.