This is not meant to be disrespectful; there are still lots of great players on this ballot. Their Fall Classic opponent was the New York Yankees, appearing in their first Series since 1981. Andruw had more power (that’s obvious); when it comes to the Hall of Fame, Torii’s nearly 2,500 hits are an asset for a center fielder. What we're left with? Perennially Underrated, the Hall of Fame Case for Dwight Evans, Zack Greinke’s Hall of Fame Odds after Game 7 Disappointment, History of Hall of Fame Starters in the World Series, Hall of Fame Chances for Stephen Strasburg, Once a “Can’t Miss” Phenom, The 2019 World Series: Chock Full of Future Hall of Fame Pitchers, Why Keith Hernandez Belongs in the Hall of Fame, Jose Altuve’s Place in the Cooperstown Conversation. I would be very happy to see Jones remain on the ballot for his entire 10 years of eligibility and it now appears likely that will happen. What happened next was something that nobody could predict. Among the 332 players with at least 225 plate appearances, his OPS+ of 35 was the second-worst in all of Major League Baseball. The problem is that his 109 isn’t anywhere near the score of 130 needed for a “virtual cinch.” Players have gotten in with worse scores, but players with better scores, like Dave Parker (125), Dale Murphy (116), and Andres Galarraga (114), have all been denied entry. I’m a little skeptical.”, — Bill James (billjamesonline.com, 1/15/18). Home / Uncategorized / andruw jones defense. Here is the top 10 in WAR “runs above average from fielding” and defensive WAR. The strongest area for a case to put Andruw Jones in the Hall of Fame would be his exceptional defense in center field. Instead, he was already well ahead of the ball, skating seemingly effortlessly to what he made into a routine catch. To get a reasonable comparison, let’s use Andruw through 2007, his last strong defensive season, where he ends up with 14234 innings. It's no secret that Andruw Jones was a superior defensive center fielder. At the same time, he didn’t seem to lose anything hit to the deepest parts of the ballparks. He also had a drastic decline that meant he fell short of an established Hall of Fame standard in batting average and several key counting stats. For the first 5 and the final of those 10 Gold Glove campaigns, Jones led the National League in putouts for center fielders. The first time Andruw Jones appeared on the Hall of Fame ballot, New York Post baseball writer Ken Davidoff checked off his name. Personally, I don’t see Jones as a Hall of Famer. Therefore, having poked a small hornets’ nest with these tweets, James explained his views in more detail in a piece on his website. Whenever given the chance, on MLB Network, John Smoltz calls Jones the best defensive center fielder he ever saw and that he should be a Hall of Famer. Andruw Jones came into the league as a teenager and was a young phenom; Jones was known for his power hitting and exceptional defense. The team whose home fans practiced the Tomahawk Chop had rallied from being down 3 games to 1 against the Redbirds and thus came into the World Series with momentum. Andruw Jones has this feverish cult following, or as feverish as cult followings go these days short of red caps and F*ck your feelings bumper stickers. He was rewarded with 10 consecutive Gold Glove Awards (1998-2007). It's hard to blame anyone because rating defense in baseball is still such an inexact science. For the first 5 and the final of those 10 Gold Glove campaigns, Jones led the National League in putouts for center fielders. Now that we’re in the StatCast era, we know more about 2020 defense than we do about 2003; we know more about 2003 than we do about 1988; we know more about 1988 than 1954, and so on. Kevin Kiermaier, in the three consecutive seasons (2015-17), posted a dWAR better than anything Mays ever posted in his entire career. Dewan, one of the greatest authorities alive on defensive metrics, refers to the James-invented Win Shares as the best way to compare defensive players across eras. Plenty of old timers saying that Andruw is the best defensive center fielder they ever saw, despite his decline. I wonder how much this drastic demise factors in the vote. Defensive WAR shows as much. Lofton 16.1 (and Lofton did start until 25 which makes a big impact here!). This hasn't been a disqualifier for others, but it's a low number and sometimes voters need to see things like at least a "2" at the start of a four-digit number of career hits. I think it’s true that Glavine was correct, that he was the best defensive center fielder of his generation. He hit .267 with a 105 OPS+ in his career. The point here is that Jones does not have an offensive resume for a Hall of Famer. In this piece, we’ll take an in-depth look at the controversy, joined by sabermetric pioneer Bill James, about the relevance and reliability of Jones’ defensive metrics. For this, he finished second (barely) in the N.L. He would hit 30+ home runs in each of the next three seasons while averaging 105 RBI and 99 runs scored. Note other center fielders above 15 through age 35 were: Paul Blair 18.9 for six years in a row (1997-2002). October 2009 Commentaries. When Andruw Jones was born (in 1977), only 16 players in the history of Major League Baseball had hit as many as 400 home runs. I’m not saying I think he should or shouldn’t be in, but if he’s a top 10 defensive and a top 10 offensive CF’er of all time, I’d say Yes. The fact that Bill James feels the need to argue Andruw is not twice as good defensively as Mays should be all you need to know. Thanks for reading. Known for his power hitting and exceptional defense, outfielder Andruw Jones was part of an Atlanta Braves team that won division titles in each of his first 10 seasons. He got 92% of the vote in his first try. Using "total zone runs" (explanation here, but the short form is it's the number of runs a player was above or below the average defender throughout his career at his position), Jones is second in history behind Brooks Robinson, sitting ahead of widely accepted all-time great defenders like Ozzie Smith, Roberto Clemente and Willie Mays. Portions of this piece were published in January 2018 and have been updated in advance of the 2021 vote. Thanks to a decline we'll cover in a second, Jones was not a compiler. You wrote that Andruw’s second HR in the World Series gave the Braves a 5-0 but it actually gave them an 8-0 lead, as evident in the very video you linked in the article. It is a factor, however, even when looking at the whole picture. However, it’s unfathomable that Jones could have been twice as good defensively as the Say Hey Kid. Manny Machado to San Diego; did the Padres sign a Future Hall of Famer? He topped 30 homers seven times, 40 once and 50 once. To make a play on the old E.F. Hutton commercial, when Bill James speaks (through his words), I listen (by reading and paying attention). He had his first multi-homer game against the Reds on August 22. I also wrote about Rolen’s case recently. The Braves had a Hall of Fame troika of ace starters in Greg Maddux, Tom Glavine and John Smoltz, a Gold Glove center fielder (Marquis Grissom), slugger Fred McGriff at 1st base, and budding superstar Chipper Jones at 3rd. Consider this as well: thanks mostly to his off-the-charts defensive numbers, Jones posted the 3rd best overall WAR from 1997-2006, behind only Barry Bonds and Alex Rodriguez. Bothered by a hyperextended left elbow and two sore knees, he hit just .222 and his power numbers slumped to 26 taters and 94 RBI, with an OPS+ of 87, which is below the league average of 100. Now, we can't leave without mentioning the likely culprit of Jones hanging around on the ballot without majority support. He posted a career 111 OPS+, showing himself as an above-average hitter by a comfortable margin, too. Now look at the offensive numbers, in particular, the “slash” line (AVG/OBP/SLG): Jones has the slight HR and RBI (aided by 684 more plate appearances) but Edmonds was clearly the superior hitter overall. Become a Stathead & surf this site ad-free. I'm just wondering where this boost is for Jones. • Hall of Fame releases 2021 ballot Alyson Footer ( @alysonfooter , moderator) : Let’s start with Kent, who has received paltry support among voters despite his numbers being essentially on par with several HOF second basemen. However, James’ Win Shares rate the two men evenly. Brooks Robinson has a much better offensive profile, but he also played third base, traditionally a position expected to provide great offense. He vaulted from Class A to the majors as a teenager in 1996 and made an instant impact in his first World Series game at age 19, hitting two home runs in a 12-1 rout of the New York Yankees. We’ll also examine the significance of his offensive contributions and discuss the impact of the last five seasons of his career, in which he did not bear any resemblance to the player that is a Cooperstown candidate today. A nine-time Gold Glover with a .277 average over 2,400 hits and over 350 home runs. Belanger is not but he was a zero offensively (career .228 BA, 20 HR) so he’s not a germane comparison to Jones. The difference is that, as I wrote in this piece, Vizquel was a very ineffective offensive player. Enter your email address to subscribe to this blog and receive notifications of new posts by email. That’s 50 “runs” better than the great Willie Mays and 30 better than right fielder Roberto Clemente. Max Scherzer Keeps Moving Closer to Cooperstown, Forget Koufax Comps; Clayton Kershaw is Going to the Hall of Fame Anyway, Carlos Beltran: Past October Star, Future Hall of Famer, Miguel Cabrera Closing in on Two Hall of Fame Milestones. You can watch both home runs by clicking here. Take a look at the numbers for Jones and Hunter, side by side. Every once in a while, you read something that gives you an “ah-ha” moment: “Andruw Jones’ career dWar is shown as 24.1, in 17,039 innings, whereas Willie Mays is shown at 18.1 in 24,427 innings. That’s far shy of the 75% that is required for a Hall of Fame plaque but a significant increase that makes him a legitimate eventual possibility for the Hall, either via the BBWAA or a future version of the Veterans Committee. The Dodgers bought out Jones’ contract and the former phenom bounced around from Texas to the south side of Chicago to the Bronx in his final four MLB seasons. It’s a nice list: Mays, Griffey, Mantle, Beltran, Jones. Appreciating Albert Pujols’ Hall of Fame Career, Justin Verlander’s Inexorable March towards the Hall of Fame. An excellent question David, one I’ll bring up next time chatting with a defensive metrics expert. Based on the advanced metrics available on Baseball-Reference and Fan Graphs, Jones is the best defensive center fielder in the history of baseball. True Crime: Fred McGriff’s Last Year on the Hall of Fame Ballot. Mays played in the Polo Grounds with a left center of 430 ft, dead center 483 ft, right center 449 ft. Old Yankee Stadium had a left center of 491 ft, later reduced to 461 ft. In a separate piece on billjamesonline, John Dewan, author of the Fielding Bible series, cites James’ fielding portion of his Win Shares system. What made it worse, as Hall of Fame expert Jay Jaffe noted, was the perception that he didn’t care that he had such a terrible season in his first year with a new team and fan base. The testimonials to the Curacao Kid’s defensive prowess start with his Hall of Fame teammates who benefited from his brilliance with the leather. He did provide respectable value with his bat in the first three of his final four years, averaging 16 HR and 41 RBI (in 294 PA per year) while posting a useful 114 OPS+. He was pretty pedestrian out there over his last 7 years and 6086 innings. Andruw Rudolf Jones (born April 23, 1977 in Willemstad, Netherlands Antilles) is an Antillean Major League Baseball player for the New York Yankees.. Andruw Jones with the Yankees in 2012. By Baseball Reference’s assessment, Jones is the best defensive outfielder in history, his 24.1 defensive WAR trumping Paul Blair’s 18.6 and Mays’s 18.1. Knocking on the Door. These are the top 16 seasons of defensive WAR, as recorded by Baseball-Reference, in the history of baseball, for center fielders (with at least 50% starts in center field): What do you notice here? Anton. Popular belief is that Jones' decline started when he showed up in Dodgers' camp, fresh off signing a huge deal, overweight and out of shape. With Klesko in left, Lofton in center and newly acquired Michael Tucker in right, Jones, still shy of his 20th birthday on opening day, was not an instant starter; he was in the starting lineup in only 27 of the team’s first 67 contests. The Braves were swept in 4 games and, although they would join the post-season party for another five consecutive seasons, they have never returned to the World Series. If you believe the numbers, Jones was the best non-PED-linked player in baseball for a ten-year period. Also on the ballot is Scott Rolen, an 8-time Gold Glover at third base. I always thought the best argument of dWAR on center fielders is not Willie Mays here but how in the hell Tris Speaker and Max Carey are so low. Is Former Minnesota Twins Catcher Joe Mauer a Future Hall of Famer? Just those six seasons! If you had to wager, at this time in his career, whether Jones would be a Hall of Famer in the future, the logical wager would have been “yes,” in spite of his off-year in ’07. The acrobatic shortstop also has a Cooperstown case based on his defensive prowess. He hung on the ballot the first two years thanks to totals of 7.3 and 7.5 percent, respectively, and got a nice bump to 19.4 percent last time around. I’ve learned more about baseball and the Hall of Fame from James than from any other human being on earth. A low opposing batting average on fly balls could potentially be attributed to the quality of those outfielders (Jones in particular) but the low level of home runs falls squarely on the quality of the starters. The contract was an utter disaster for the Dodgers. Mays would end up with 14629 innings in center field over those years. Jones was 31 to 35 years of age in those final five campaigns. Division Series against the Dodgers, being used instead as a defensive replacement in left field for Ryan Klesko, a big home-run hitter but not especially proficient with the leather.