Hall of Fame voters seem to forget the stardom of Andruw Jones

Hall of Fame voters appear on the verge of dropping the former Atlanta Braves star below the threshold for future Hall of Fame consideration

Is Andruw Jones a Hall of Fame player? He retired following the 2012 season with a career .254 batting average and a 111 career OPS+ that qualifies as “good, not great”, but also with five All-Star game appearances, a career 62.8 WAR, and the respect that accrues to a player regarded as the game’s best center fielder.

Looking strictly at the WAR number, Jones has plausible HOF credentials. He is in a four-way tie for 156th all time, and two of the three players he’s tied with – Home Run Baker and Mickey Welch – are in the Hall. So are John Ward (62.3 WAR), Clark Griffith (61.4), Jake Beckley (61.3), Tommy Bond (60.9) and Harmon Killebrew (60.4), all of whom trail Jones by a few points in WAR.

He also has the enthusiastic backing of Atlanta Braves fans, many of whom recently celebrated the induction of another 1990s Jones – Chipper. That Jones had better offensive credentials, including a career .303 average and 85.2 WAR – but lacked Andruw’s reputation as an elite defensive figure.

But if this season’s early Hall of Fame voting is an indicator, Andruw Jones’ chances of following in his former teammate’s footsteps to Cooperstown are in dire jeopardy. Based on the votes made public to date, not only is Jones unlikely to win election, in his second year of eligibility he’s a good bet to fall off the ballot entirely, making him ineligible for consideration until sometime in the 2030s.

According to Ryan Thibodeaux, who specializes in monitoring the progress of Hall of Fame voting, Jones has fallen below the five percent threshold for further consideration by the baseball writers. Last year he was named on 7.6 percent of ballots. Votes must be submitted by Jan. 1, with results to be announced later in January.

Nor is Jones alone among prominent stars of the recent past whose continued candidacy is in jeopardy. Based on the 118 ballots made public to date, Lance Berkman, a first-time ballot member drawing only 1.7% support, is also in serious jeopardy. Berkman was a career .293 hitter and six-time All-Star with a career 144 OPS+ and 52.1 WAR.

Jones’ backers reacted with predictable offense to the prospect of his falling off the ballot, several arguing that Jones’ peak performance credentials should elevate him to Hall of Fame status even if his career numbers don’t. Jones played 17 seasons, a dozen of them for the Braves, his All-Star selections all coming between 2000 and 2006. Between 1996 and 2005 he was the starting center fielder on 10 consecutive post-season appearances, all of them as NL East champions.

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His .263 batting average with the Braves was not eye-catching, but he did average 30 home runs per season, topping out at 51 and 128 RBIs in 2005. He carried a .490 slugging average for the Braves.

In a Twitter account titled @HofJones, the tweeter argued that Jones was one of only six outfielders in baseball history to be worth more than 100 runs with both their bats and gloves and also to be above-average baserunners. The six were identified as Barry Bonds, Al Kaline, Willie Mays, Roberto Clemente, Kenny Lofton and Jones.

One Jones fan, KC Covington, tweeted that since 1980, 26 Hall of Famers were inducted with a lower career fielding WAR than Jones 66.9. “How do voters justify this … when we have so much more info to understand a player’s overall impact,” Covington asked.

Jones wasn’t the only flagging candidate prompting outrage from his fans. Sandy Karoll, responding to the news about Berkman’s status, argued that his numbers were comparable to Edgar Martinez. Martinez is widely expected to be elected to the Hall of Fame this year. He had a career .312/.418/.515 slash line with a 147 OPS+; Bergman’s numbers were .293/.406/.537 and 144.

“How is one off the ballot and the other going into HOF,” Karoll asked, adding, “I do not understand.”