He was a household name at the age of 19.
He made World Series history by becoming the youngest player to homer in the 1996 Fall Classic against the New York Yankees, hitting two in Game 1.
He won 10 consecutive Gold Gloves (1998-2007), anchoring center field for an Atlanta Braves team that won the National League East in each of his first 10 seasons (1996-2005).
He finished with 434 career home runs, including a franchise-record 51 in 2005, all before retiring at the age of 35.
And in September, 2023, his No. 25 was retired by the Braves.
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His name: Andruw Jones, the Curaçao native who lived up to expectations.
Now, Jones sits on the Baseball Hall of Fame ballot for the eighth time, hoping to get the 75% votes needed for induction into Cooperstown.
The case for Andruw Jones
He was a generational talent, the modern-day Willie Mays with the combination of power and defense.
His 10 Gold Gloves and 434 home runs made him one of only four players to have won 10 Gold Gloves with 400 career home runs. The others are Mays, Mike Schmidt and Ken Griffey Jr. − all first-ballot Hall of Famers.
He’s also one of six outfielders with 10 or more Gold Gloves. The others are Roberto Clemente and Mays (12 each), and Ken Griffey Jr., Al Kaline and Ichiro Suzuki (10 each).
Gold Gloves are nice. So are defensive analytics. The center fielder’s career 24.4 defensive WAR, per Baseball Reference, is the most of any outfielder in MLB history, by 5.6.
And during that span from 1998 to 2006, Jones totaled 54.5 WAR. That ranked third among position players, behind only Alex Rodriguez (70.6) and Barry Bonds (67.6).
The case against Andruw Jones
Longevity could hurt Jones’ case. His peak years were in his 20s and by the time he turned 30, his production began to drop rapidly. In 2005, he slugged a major league high 51 homers and had a .922 OPS, finishing second in the National League in MVP voting. After he turned 30 in 2007, his OPS plunged to .724, the last year he won his final Gold Glove.
The star outfielder’s career in Atlanta ended after the 2007 season when he signed with the Los Angeles Dodgers as a free agent. He was never the same, with injuries limiting him to 75 games and a career-low .158 batting average.
He would end up playing for four different teams in his final five years in the big leagues batting a combined .210 with a .740 OPS, playing only over 100 games in one of those seasons.
Voting results
Jones is making his eighth appearance on the ballot. He has seen a steady climb in votes since 2019 – becoming of one of three players to gain mention on more than half the ballots last year outside Scott Rolen. The other two: reliever Billy Wagner (68.1%) and outfielder Gary Sheffield (55.0%).
2018 – 7.3%2019 – 7.5%2020 – 19.4%2021 – 33.9%2022 – 41.4%2023 – 58.1%
Reasonable outlook
It’s trending in the right direction. With nearly half the estimated ballots recorded, Jones is sitting at 72% of the vote, just shy of the 75% needed to gain induction. The good news is that he debuted on the ballot the same year as Rolen and seems to be following the same trajectory, but a year behind due to his gaining only 0.2% from 2018 to 2019. However, he has two more years on the ballot.