Andruw Jones: Best Defensive Center Fielder Ever?

If you’re a baseball fan of a certain age or one with a strong sense of the sport’s history, the title of this piece may seem patently bizarre. If you’re an Atlanta Braves fan who watched Andruw Jones play every day from 1997-2006, your answer might be a simple “yes, of course, he is.” If you’re a fan of the Los Angeles Dodgers, Texas Rangers, Chicago White Sox, or New York Yankees and only saw Jones play when he toiled for your hometown team, the phrase “best defensive center fielder ever” might seem as absurd as a statement that the earth is flat.

To fans of those teams, putting the name Andruw Jones and the phrase “Hall of Fame candidate” into the same sentence might seem equally laughable. And yet, a candidate he is; he is on the BBWAA (Baseball Writers Association of America) for the sixth time right now, with the results to be announced on Tuesday. After barely clearing the minimum of 5% in his first two turns on the ballot, Jones got 19.4% of the vote in 2020, 33.9% in 2021, 41.4% in 2022, and 58.1% in 2023.

Jones fell shy of the 75% that is required for a Hall of Fame plaque, but the gains he’s been making in the last few ballots make him a likely Hall of Famer in waiting, either via the BBWAA or a future version of the Veterans Committee. Based on the first 183 ballots revealed publicly on Ryan Thibodaux’s Hall of Fame vote tracker, Jones is sitting at 71.1%. That percentage will likely sag, but the odds are likely that he’ll get past 75% in future years.

For 11 seasons, Andruw Jones roamed center field for the great teams of the Atlanta Braves and earned respect throughout the game as a defensive wizard. He was rewarded with 10 consecutive Gold Glove Awards (1998-2007). For the first 5 and the final of those 10 Gold Glove campaigns, Jones led the National League in putouts for center fielders. By the Wins Above Replacement component that relates to fielding, he was the best overall defensive player in the N.L. for six years in a row (1997-2002).

This piece was originally published in January 2018 and has been updated in advance of the 2024 vote.

Better than Mays and Clemente?

Based on the advanced metrics available on Baseball-Reference and Fan Graphs, Jones is the best defensive center fielder in the history of baseball. Using the Baseball-Reference numbers, he saved 235 runs defensively over his career. That’s 50 “runs” better than the great Willie Mays and 30 better than right fielder Roberto Clemente.

With 12 Gold Gloves each, the Say Hey Kid and the Great One have long been considered the best defensive glove-men ever among outfielders.

If you accept the premise that Andruw Jones is, in fact, the best defensive outfielder in the history of the game and add in the fact that he hit 434 career home runs, those are two big building blocks for the foundation of a Hall of Fame resume.

And yet, not a whole lot of people are buying it, including me. Although his level of support has improved significantly in the last few years, he and his supporters still have many more writers to convince.

In this piece, I’ll take an in-depth look at the controversy about the relevance and reliability of Jones’ defensive metrics. I’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 who is a Cooperstown candidate today.

Cooperstown Cred: Andruw Jones (CF)

6th year on the ballot in 2024 (received 58.1% of the vote in 2023)

• Braves (1996-2007), Dodgers (2008), Rangers (2009), White Sox (2010), Yankees (2011-12)
• Career: .254 BA, .337 OBP, .486 SLG, 434 HR, 1,289 RBI, 1,933 Hits
• Career: 111 OPS+, 62.7 WAR (Wins Above Replacement)
• 10-time Gold Glove Award winner (tied for 3rd most for any outfielder behind Clemente and Mays)
• 5th most HR for CF all-time (Mays, Griffey, Mantle, Beltran) (min 50% starts in CF)
• Finished 2nd in 2005 MVP voting (51 HR, 128 RBI, 136 OPS+, Gold Glove)
• 5-time All-Star

Career Highlights

Andruw Rudolf Jones was born on April 23, 1977, in Willemstad, Curacao. The tiny island nation of Curacao, a part of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, is just 37 miles off the northern coast of Venezuela and about 70 miles east of Aruba. It’s the birthplace of a total of 16 Major League players. Hensley Meulens of the New York Yankees was the first (in 1989); Jones, who debuted in 1996, was just the third. Today, there are five, including Los Angeles Dodgers closer Kenley Jansen, free agent shortstop Andrelton Simmons, and Braves second baseman Ozzie Albies.

Jones signed with the Atlanta Braves in June 1993, shortly after his 16th birthday. By the beginning of the 1996 season, the five-tool player was ranked as the #1 prospect in all of baseball by Baseball America. Jones rocketed through the Braves minor league system in ’96, climbing from A-ball to AA to AAA before making his MLB debut on August 15th, 1996. Although he only hit .217 in 113 plate appearances, he impressed manager Bobby Cox enough to make the Braves post-season roster.

The 1996 Post-Season

The 1996 Atlanta Braves, who were the defending World Series champions, were loaded. 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. Chipper, in his second season, finished 4th in the N.L. MVP voting. The ’96 edition of the Braves also had All-Stars at catcher (Javy Lopez) and shortstop (Jeff Blauser).

On this team, Andruw Jones did not start any of the three games in the N.L. 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. The left-handed-hitting Klesko had struggled against southpaw hurlers during the regular season (hitting .230 with just 3 home runs in 151 PA), so Cox gave the Curacao Kid a start in left field in Game 3 of the NLCS against the St. Louis Cardinals and southpaw Donovan Osborne.

Jones went 0 for 2 in Game 3, but with Osborne on the hill again in Game 7, he got another start. In this game, his bat came to life, delivering a run-scoring single in the bottom of the first inning, part of a 6-run opening frame that essentially clinched the series. Later in the game, which the Braves would win 15-0, Jones hit his first post-season home run.

The Fall Classic

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. Their Fall Classic opponent was the New York Yankees, appearing in their first Series since 1981.

With a lefty starter (Andy Pettitte) toeing the rubber for the Bronx Bombers in Game 1 at Yankee Stadium, Jones drew another start in left field. In the top of the second inning, the 19-year-old Jones hit a two-run home run into the left field stands to give the Braves a 2-0 lead. In the next inning, with Brian Boehringer now on the mound, Jones hit a three-run blast to give Atlanta an 8-0 lead and essentially put the game away. You can watch both home runs by clicking here.

As the series unfolded, of course, the Yankees would come back from being down 2 games to none and win the Series in 6 games. Despite the disappointing outcome, a budding star was born in Andruw Jones.

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Household Name at 19 Years of Age

Although Andruw Jones had emerged as a household name, the Braves didn’t instantly create a starting spot for him. In spring training of 1997, the Braves traded Grissom and right fielder David Justice to the Cleveland Indians, but they brought back a Gold Glove All-Star center fielder, Kenny Lofton.

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.

A mid-summer injury to Lofton gave Jones a chance to flash his leather in center field. Overall, in his official rookie year, Jones hit .231 with 18 home runs, 70 runs batted in, and 20 stolen bases. He finished 5th in the Rookie of the Year voting, behind Scott Rolen (elected to the Hall of Fame last month) and just ahead of Vladimir Guerrero, who received a Cooperstown plaque in the summer of 2018.

Ten Golden Years at Turner Field

With Lofton returning to Cleveland after the ’97 season via free agency, Jones became a full-time starter in 1998 and responded with a .271 average along with 31 HR, 90 RBI, 27 steals (in just 31 attempts), and his first of 10 consecutive Gold Gloves.

With Jones playing all 162 games in 1999, his Braves returned to the Fall Classic to face the Yankees. Jones, however, did not have the same impact as he had in ’96; he went 1 for 13, with the team hitting just .200 as a whole. 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.

Jones made his first All-Star squad in 2000, hitting a career-high .303 with 36 HR, 104 RBI, and a 126 park-adjusted OPS+. He would hit 30+ home runs in each of the next three seasons while averaging 105 RBI and 99 runs scored.

After somewhat of an off-year in 2004, Jones had a career-best offensive campaign in 2005; he set career highs with an MLB-leading 51 home runs, 128 RBI, and a 136 OPS+ while winning his 9th Gold Glove. For this, he finished second (barely) in the N.L. MVP voting to Albert Pujols. Jones followed that year up with 41 HR, 129 RBI, and a 126 OPS+ in 2006.

Here are Jones’ year-by-year numbers from 1996-2006, which included his first ten full seasons in Major League Baseball, in which he made five All-Star teams, won nine Gold Gloves, and drew MVP votes five times.

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Although he would win his 10th and final Gold Glove in 2007, that season was the beginning of the precipitous decline phase of Andruw Jones’ career. 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.

From Gold Glover to Part-Time Player

At the end of the 2007 season, Andruw Jones, still just 30 years old, had already won 10 Gold Gloves and already hit 368 home runs with 1,117 RBI. In the entire history of baseball, only eight players have hit more than 368 long balls through their age 30 seasons. The eight: Alex Rodriguez, Ken Griffey Jr., Jimmie Foxx, Pujols, Mickey Mantle, Eddie Mathews, Frank Robinson, and Mel Ott.

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. He was a premier defensive player at a premium defensive position. He could hit for power. And he was durable; in 11 seasons in Atlanta, he never played in fewer than 153 games.

Jones was a free agent after 2007 and signed a two-year, $36 million contract with the Los Angeles Dodgers. What happened next was something that nobody could predict. The contract was an utter disaster for the Dodgers. Jones showed up at training camp 15-to-25 pounds overweight and, in his one and only season in Dodger Blue, he hit .158 with 3 home runs and 14 RBI in just 238 plate appearances.

Among the 332 players with at least 225 plate appearances, his OPS+ of 35 was the second-worst in all of Major League Baseball. He struck out 76 times in those 225 PA, 16 more times than his hits and walks combined.

In addition to his offensive woes, whether it’s by the eye test or the metrics, Jones’ defense fell off a cliff in that impossible-to-forget 2008 campaign. What made it worse 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.

2009-12: Texas, Chicago, and New York

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. As he was at the inception of his big league career, Jones was now a platoon player. 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+.

The Curacao Kid’s final MLB campaign (in 2012 with the Yanks) was a disappointment; he hit just .197 with an 87 OPS+. Jones spent the final two years of his playing days playing for the Tohoku Rakuten Golden Eagles in the Japan Pacific League. He managed 50 home runs in two years but hit just .232.

Ultimately, the comparison between his first eleven seasons and his last six is stark:

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Andruw Jones: the Offensive Resume

The cornerstone in any reasonable argument that advocates for a Cooperstown plaque for Andruw Jones starts with his defensive prowess. We’ll get to that next. But let’s first see to what degree his offensive contributions can buttress his resume.

He did hit 434 home runs in his career. That’s the 5th most for any center fielder (defined as starting a minimum of 50% of your games there). The players ahead of him on this list are Mays, Griffey, Mantle, and Carlos Beltran (who finished one ahead with 435 and is now on the BBWAA ballot).

It’s a nice list: Mays, Griffey, Mantle, Beltran, Jones.

It’s the only offensive list, however, on which Jones rates so high. As we go through some more categories, it doesn’t look quite so rosy:

• 1,289 RBI (10th): behind 7 Hall of Famers, Beltran and Torii Hunter (who is also back on the 2024 ballot).
• 1,204 runs (31st); behind 19 non-Hall of Famers.
• 1,933 hits (43rd): behind 28 non-Hall of Famers.

For rate stats, there are 123 players in history with at least 5,000 plate appearances and a minimum of 50% of games played in center field. Here’s where Jones ranks among those 119:

• .254 AVG (109th): Ken Griffey Jr.’s .284 clip is the lowest all-time for a Hall of Fame center fielder.
• .337 OBP (80th): Lloyd Waner .353 on-base% is the lowest for an enshrined CF.
• .486 SLG (16th): this is better of course; he’s tied with Beltran. Still, there are four others not in the Hall with better (Jim Edmonds, Wally Berger, Ellis Burks, and Beltran).
• 111 OPS+ (49th): this is bad. 34 center fielders not in the Hall have done better.

If you take oWAR (WAR for hitting and base-running only), Jones (at 39.8) ranks 43rd.

If elected, Jones’ .254 career batting average would be the second-lowest for any member of the Hall of Fame, ahead of only catcher Ray Schalk, who was born in 1892.

Jones vs Edmonds

Clearly, there is nothing about the profile of Andruw Jones as an offensive player that screams Hall of Fame. It’s true that 434 home runs are a lot for a center fielder, but the rest of his offensive game was not Cooperstown caliber. It’s also noteworthy that only 359 of those taters occurred when he started in center field. That’s behind Edmonds, who logged 372 blasts as a starting CF (out of 393 total).

Edmonds, another premier defensive player, was a late bloomer, not becoming a regular player until his age 24 season (1994). Like Jones, Edmonds is lacking in longevity. He was, however, another defensive stud. He won 8 Gold Gloves, thanks to his highlight-reel diving catches. Forget the defensive metrics for a moment (that’s coming in 2 sections). Edmonds won 8 Gold Gloves; Jones won 10. Now look at the offensive numbers, in particular, the “slash” line (BA/OBP/SLG):

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Jones has the slight HR and RBI edge (aided by 684 more plate appearances), but Edmonds was clearly the superior hitter overall. Six years ago, despite a good offensive profile and 8 Gold Gloves of his own, Edmonds got just 2.5% in his first and only year on the writers’ ballot.

The Declining Value of 400 Home Runs

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. All were already or would become Hall of Famers. When Jones made his MLB debut in 1996, there were still only 25 players who had swatted as many as 400 homers. All but Dave Kingman (442 HR) and Darrell Evans (414) currently have plaques in Cooperstown.

If, after watching his two home runs in Game 1 of the ’96 World Series, I were to tell you that Jones would finish his career with 434 taters to go with 10 Gold Gloves, you would have said “Hall of Famer” for sure.

The problem is that, in today’s homer-happy game, 400 career home runs are no longer the big deal that it once was. Today there are a whopping 58 players who have at least 400 long balls. There were, in fact, 9 of them (including Jones) on the 2020 BBWAA ballot. Four of them (Adam Dunn, Jason Giambi, Paul Konerko, and Alfonso Soriano) appeared on the ballot for the first time, and all got well under 5%, eliminating their eligibility from future ballots. The others (Barry Bonds, Sammy Sosa, Manny Ramirez, and Gary Sheffield) likely would all have Cooperstown plaques by now if not for links to Performance-enhancing Drugs. Giambi, incidentally, also used PEDs.

Another member of the 400 home run club (Mark Teixeira) was on the Hall of Fame ballot for the first time in 2022 and got less than 5%. Yet another, Carlos Beltran, was on the 2023 ballot and is a strong candidate for Cooperstown. Beltran got 46.5% of the vote, a total clearly diminished by his role in the 2017 Astros cheating scandal.

Anyway, take a look at how Jones compares offensively to the members of the 400-home run club who have hit the ballot in the last several voting cycles.

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Other than Texeira and Beltran, the other four players on this list were defensively challenged, but when you look at the offensive numbers, Jones and Soriano are clearly at the bottom of the list. Giambi, actually, might have been a good Cooperstown candidate as a peak performer if that peak were not tainted by his admitted PED use. Because of their defensive shortcomings, those not named Jones got between 0.3% and 2.5% of the vote, with Texeira’s vote share for 2022 yet to be determined.

The point of this exercise is that Jones does not have an offensive resume for a Hall of Famer. The case must rest on his glove work.

Best Defensive Center Fielder Ever?

It’s the title of this piece, and it’s the burning question: is Andruw Jones the best defensive center fielder in the history of baseball? Watching him play, there’s no doubt that he was spectacular. Nobody I’ve ever seen had the ability to play shallow and go back on balls over his head. By playing shallow, he made outs on line drives that would have been singles with other center fielders. At the same time, he didn’t seem to lose anything hit to the deepest parts of the ballparks.

The testimonials to the Curacao Kid’s defensive prowess start with his Hall of Fame teammates who benefited from his brilliance with the leather. 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. Tom Glavine said, “With all due respect to Willie Mays, who I never saw play, Andruw Jones is the best defensive center fielder of our generation.”

The study and interpretation of defensive statistics in baseball history is perhaps the most controversial topic when it comes to Hall of Fame debates. As the study of sabermetrics gains mainstream credibility in the community of baseball writers and pundits, a consensus on the reliability of defensive numbers still remains elusive.

The defensive metrics on Baseball Reference rank Jones as the best ever at his craft in center field. Here are the top 10 in WAR “runs above average from fielding” and defensive WAR. The differences are subtle; they’re more meaningful when you compare players among different positions.

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Well, that’s pretty impressive! Either way, Jones dominates the numbers.

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If you take the “WAR Runs Fielding” component and compare Jones to players of all positions, the Curacao Kid still comes in 5th place. He’s behind only Brooks Robinson, Mark Belanger, Ozzie Smith, and Adrian Beltre. The Human Vacuum Cleaner (Robinson) and The Wizard of Oz are in the Hall of Fame. Beltre, who retired after the 2019 campaign, joins the BBWAA ballot in 2024 and is a lock for a plaque.  Belanger is not but he was a zero offensively (career .228 BA, 20 HR) so he’s not a germane comparison to Jones.

When you consider that Jones did hit those 434 home runs, that he was a good (if not great) offensive player if you believe the statistics in the preceding graphic, which strongly imply that he was, in fact, the greatest defensive center fielder of all time, that seems like a very strong Hall of Fame case.

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. If you believe the numbers, Jones was the best non-PED-linked player in baseball for a ten-year period. If you believe those numbers, that’s a Hall of Famer.

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Can you Believe the Defensive Metrics?

If you’ve read other pieces on this site, you already know that I personally take defensive metrics with a big grain of salt, especially defensive metrics prior to 2003. There are so many factors that are unknown that can influence the numbers. I do not profess to be a defensive metrics expert, but I have an inquisitive mind, and there is a basic “chicken and egg” question that I have regarding Andruw Jones’ off-the-charts defensive statistics.

The big question: to what extent can the presence of multiple high-quality pitchers (Hall of Famers Maddux, Glavine, and Smoltz) influence the defensive metrics of their outfielders? Lazy fly balls are the most guaranteed fielding outs in baseball. With that high-quality staff, was there a higher proportion of balls that were hit with weak contact into the outfield?

An attempt at the answer:

Jones’ best seasons defensively were from 1997-2002. He was #1 in baseball at defensive run prevention in every one of those years, by the numbers. The defensive “fielding runs above average” that he accumulated during these six years are at the core of his Cooperstown case. If he only played those six seasons, his 169 “fielding runs above average” would be, in totality, the 4th best in baseball history among all center fielders. Just those six seasons!

According to Baseball Reference, during those 6 seasons, Braves pitchers had the lowest BAA (batting average against) among all teams in baseball on balls in play classified as “fly balls.” Opposing batters hit just .138 on fly balls (the second-best team’s mark was .144). In addition, for those 6 years, Braves hurlers yielded the fewest home runs (732, which was a whopping 78 fewer than the second-best team).

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. That’s the evidence that the collective efforts of the Braves hurlers resulted in the easiest cans of corn for any outfield in baseball during these six years. (Yes, outfielders do “rob” opposing players of home runs but the opportunities to do that are relatively rare compared to the “no doubt” taters).

Anyway, what’s also interesting is that, for the most part, Jones’ teammates in the outfield during these years (most notably Kenny Lofton, Michael Tucker, Gerald Williams, and Brian Jordan) also had positive numbers defensively. That tells me that, while there’s no doubt that the Curacao Kid was an outstanding glove man, it’s likely that his superior metrics are at least in part attributable to the excellence of his Hall of Fame teammates who toed the rubber for the Braves during his heyday.

The Defensive Index Committee

In fairness, this is mere speculation on my part that the quality of the Braves hurlers contributed to Jones’ fantastic defensive metrics. There is, however, a gentleman named Chris Dial who has put far more brain power into this exercise. Dial, one of the original writers for the Baseball Think Factory and a longtime member of SABR’s Defensive Index Committee, did an extensive amount of research into Andruw Jones’ defensive metrics and had some startling results, shared with Hall of Fame writer Jayson Stark.

“Dial told me his research shows that after Jones’ first four years, his weight began to balloon, while — in a related development — his speed and jumps declined. Dial also found Jones’ defensive value in those years was inflated by his arm and the many “discretionary outs” he all but stole from his infielders and corner outfielders on softly hit balls that center fielders don’t normally haul in. 

So what’s the gist of all that? Dial believes Andruw should have clearly won “only” three or four Gold Gloves — but nowhere near the 10 he actually won, even if you allow for all the variables. I’m not going to bog this down with his voluminous charts and data. But if Dial is even half-right, that means Jones needs more than just defense to make a convincing Hall of Fame case. And has he done that?”

— Jayson Stark, The Athletic (Jan. 20, 2023)

After posing the question, “Has he done that,” Stark’s article covers some of the same terrains that I discussed earlier in the piece (about Andruw’s offensive resume), starting with a boldface declaration that “he’d be one of the worst hitters in the Hall.” Stark notes that there are only four Hall of Famers in the expansion era who have as few as the four seasons Jones produced with a 120 or higher OPS+ and at least 400 plate appearances: Ozzie Smith, Bill Mazeroski, Luis Aparicio, and Nellie Fox. All four of those men are middle infielders.

The Godfather Speaks

There’s more: about six years ago, on Twitter, sabermetric pioneer Bill James (dubbed “The Godfather” of sabermetrics by MLB Network’s Brian Kenny) publicly inserted himself into the debate about whether Andruw Jones was the best defensive center fielder of all time.

First, let me say this about Bill James. I started reading his annual Baseball Abstract in 1981 or 1982; I was a baseball-obsessed teenager. James opened my eyes to things about baseball I had never before considered. As an example, until I read his work, I had never contemplated the value of on-base percentages for batters. I never considered the fact that run support for pitchers does not even out over the course of one season.

I’ve learned more about baseball and the Hall of Fame from James than from any other human being on earth. 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)

Anyway, here’s a sampling of what might be considered a James-ian Tweet-storm on the topic of Andruw Jones:

Twitter is not exactly the best forum for a man with James’ analytical mind and writing skills. Confining James to 280 characters at a time is like confining Steven Spielberg to a 5-minute short. Therefore, having poked a small hornet’s nest with these tweets, James explained his views in more detail in a piece on his website.

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. On a per-inning basis, Jones is being credited with saving twice as many runs as Willie Mays, compared to a replacement level center fielder… Well, I believe that Andruw Jones was a fine defensive center fielder, but I don’t necessarily believe that he was twice as good a center fielder as Willie Mays. I’m a little skeptical.”

— Bill James (billjamesonline.com, 1/15/18)

Well, there you have it, sports fans! The metrics dWAR and WAR Runs above average from fielding are telling us that Andruw Jones was twice as good as Willie Mays. Now, I’m not old enough to have seen Mays play, and it’s entirely possible that, at his best, Jones was better.  However, it’s unfathomable that Jones could have been twice as good defensively as the Say Hey Kid.

In a separate piece on billjamesonline, John Dewan, author of the Fielding Bible series, cites James’ fielding portion of his Win Shares system. 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. Here are the top 10 in Win Shares for outfielders, according to Sports Info Solutions:

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Well, this is still pretty darn good for Andruw Jones, but it’s not remotely the same as a metric that, on a per-inning basis, lists him as two times better than Mays. On this list, Jones is the fourth-best defensive outfielder of all time and not too far ahead of contemporaries Marquis Grissom and Torii Hunter.

The Generational Bias of dWAR

Getting back to the metrics most often cited in analyses about the defensive prowess of players, James made an additional point that “runs saved” estimates are, generally speaking, much higher for modern players than they are from players of previous generations and that’s simply because the data is so much more limited the further you go back in time.

This is an extraordinarily important point. As defensive metrics have evolved, there is an inherent bias that favors (or punishes) the players of today’s generation because we have so many more tools with which to measure them. 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.

I’m going to prove James’ point that the defensive metrics have a generational bias. 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):

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What do you notice here? Besides the presence of Andruw Jones twice in the top 6, it’s that 11 of the top 12 dWAR seasons have occurred in the last 32 years (since 1992).  Mays’ best total is 2.1, achieved twice (in 1962 and 1966); those marks are tied for the 83rd best for a single-season total. Kevin Kiermaier, in the three consecutive seasons (2015-17), posted a dWAR better than anything Mays ever posted in his entire career.

If you extend this to the top 39 dWAR seasons for center fielders (2.5 or higher), 15 of them have been since 2009; 28 of 39 have been since 1989; 36 of 39 since 1969; there are none prior to 1955. The generational bias of the defensive metrics is obvious.

Are we buying the idea that today’s premier center fielders are fundamentally better than their fellow center fielders from yesteryear? Well, perhaps they aren’t fundamentally superior, but they are certainly better prepared to maximize the odds of a positive outcome. With hitters’ spray charts and defensive shifts, it’s certainly true that more balls in play are being turned into outs. However, at the same time, fewer balls are put in play than ever before.

A Quartet of Defensive Stalwarts

Andruw Jones is, interestingly, one of three candidates on the 2024 BBWAA ballot whose primary case rests on the defensive side of the ball. 11-time Gold Glove Award winner Omar Vizquel was on the ballot. The acrobatic shortstop also has a Cooperstown case based on his defensive prowess. The difference is that, as I wrote in this piece, Vizquel was a very ineffective offensive player. In addition, the defensive metrics don’t back up his reputation. For whatever flaws there are in the numbers measuring players’ glove work, they are undoubtedly more reliable when comparing players from the same year than in trying to compare players across generations.

Torii Hunter, the 9-time Gold Glove-winning center fielder who played 19 years for the Twins, Angels, and Tigers. is also on the ballot.

Take a look at the numbers for Jones and Hunter side by side.

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As you can see, the two center fielders have similar offensive credentials. They both suffer from not being prolific at taking walks, hence their relatively low OPS+ totals. 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.

The big difference is in the defensive metrics. The Baseball-Reference (BR) stats (Rfield and dWAR) give Jones a massive edge. However, James’ Win Shares rate the two men more closely, albeit with Jones still having a demonstrable edge. So, which metrics do you believe?

If you’re trying to pick a Hall of Famer between Jones and Hunter, it’s not so easy if you’re open to the possibility that Hunter was at least close to Jones’ equal defensively. My personal instinct is that Jones was better (possibly much better) but I can’t say that I agree he was as dramatically better as the BR numbers would indicate.

What do the Writers Have to Say?

Before offering my own conclusion, let’s take a look at what the BBWAA members have to say. As previously noted, Jones did really well in last year’s vote, getting 58.1%.

Here is a sample of some of the “yes” votes for Andruw Jones, starting with the aforementioned Jayson Stark, who changed his mind from “no” to “yes” this year:

“It took me seven elections, but the Andruw Jones Fan Club can finally get off my case. I did it. I voted for your guy… Look, I always said I loved watching the young Andruw Jones run down every fly ball from the left-center-field gap to downtown Savannah. I’ve never seen a better center fielder in my life than Young Andruw. That’s just a fact. He definitely wasn’t That Guy anymore in his 30s — and, candidly, not even in his late 20s. But if I’m gravitating toward being a voter who honors players with great peaks and tangible impacts on winning, then his peak was enough to change my vote.”

— Jayson Stark, The Athletic (Jan. 18, 2024)

“This is my first vote for Jones after six years on the ballot… If there’s a simple question that helps me determine a Hall of Famer, it’s this: did he do something better than pretty much anyone else?… He’s not a slam dunk, and his career petered out exactly when he could’ve been polishing his Hall of Fame resume, but a decade-plus of catching everything at a premium defensive position while hitting the ball out of the park is enough for me.”

— John Tomase, NBC Sports Boston (Dec. 27, 2022)

“I covered Andruw Jones for a couple of years at the end of his career, and he was no Hall of Famer then… I’ve never hesitated to vote for him, though. Jones’ peak was tremendous, and I remember the way he captured the imagination in the 1990s. An elite defender at a premium position, hitting 35 home runs a year for the best franchise of the era — he was one of the game’s defining players for more than a decade, and the advanced metrics support that subjective assessment. To me, that’s a Hall of Famer. Easy decision.”

— Chad Jennings, The Athletic (Jan. 7, 2023)

“I have voted for Andruw Jones, the former Braves centre fielder, every year he has been eligible. I’ve never quite understood why he hasn’t done better in the voting. For some reason, defence never gets judged the way offence does. Offence is easy to quantify. Defence, not so much. Jones was a brilliant outfielder.”

— Steve Simmons, Toronto Sun (Dec. 27, 2022)

And now here are some “no” votes for Jones, including one who noted that Jones pleaded guilty in 2012 to domestic violence:

“I still am not convinced… Is Jones any more worthy of the Hall for center field than Jim Edmonds or Dale Murphy? Jones finished with a 112 OPS+, compared to 132 for Edmonds and 121 for Murphy. All have power. All are strong defensively… No doubt Jones was a stellar defensive center fielder, maybe best of his era. But he crashed after 30, his offense was spectacular but flawed, his domestic violence issue hurts his resume, and I’m still not ready to vote for him.”

— Mike Bass, Mike Bass Coaching (Jan. 20, 2024)

“Man, I loved Andruw Jones. Just a breathtaking player. His numbers after his age 29 season, however, cratered in such a way that he was more of a shooting star than a supernova. (You’ll notice, I am big on guys playing well late into their careers).”

— Will Graves, Associated Press (Dec. 27, 2022)

You’ll notice that these two “no” votes are hardly hard “no’s.” That’s how it often is when a player is gaining momentum during their ten years of eligibility for the Hall of Fame. A soft “no” often turns into a weak “yes” when a player gets close to 75%.

Conclusions and Cooperstown Prognosis

Personally, I’m still not convinced that Jones belongs as a Hall of Famer. So much of his WAR value comes from his defense from 1997-2002, and I think those numbers are inflated. In addition, I can’t look past the last five years of his career. This was not a player hanging on in his late 30s or early 40s. Jones was 31 to 35 years of age in those final five campaigns.

The game of baseball has seen some excellent center fielders in the last three decades, with one superstar (Ken Griffey Jr.). Jay Jaffe’s JAWS system puts Jones as the 11th-best center fielder in baseball history and the 5th-best since 1989, behind Mike Trout, Ken Griffey Jr., Carlos Beltran, and Kenny Lofton, with Jim Edmonds four slots behind. For me, Andruw would be my last pick behind the others. Frankly, because of his postseason batting prowess, I’d put Bernie Williams ahead of Jones as well.

The crux of the matter is that the core of Jones’ Hall of Fame case rests in those best-ever defensive statistics. I know for certain that he was a great defensive player, but I can’t get on board with the idea that he was the best ever. I think it’s true that Glavine was correct in that he was the best defensive center fielder of his generation. But, if you follow the Bill James Win Shares system, he was better but not dramatically better than two of his peers (Hunter and Marquis Grissom).

Still, the James system does list Jones as the 4th best outfielder ever defensively, behind three Hall of Famers, and 4th best is pretty darned great. When you combine that fact with Baseball-Reference’s metrics labeling him the best ever and that he did win those 10 Gold Gloves while swatting 434 home runs, I will acknowledge that the case for Jones is quite compelling.

The Hall of Fame rules state that voters cannot cast ballots for more than 10 players.  There are 10 players I would vote for before Andruw Jones on the upcoming 2024 ballot. This is not meant to be disrespectful; there are lots of strong candidates on this ballot.

When I first posted this article six years ago, I didn’t think Jones deserved a plaque in Cooperstown and didn’t think he’d ever make it, the taint of his final five campaigns being too much to overcome.

Today, I feel differently. I’m not ready to give Andruw my personal “yes” vote yet, but I feel it’s inevitable that he will eventually make the Hall of Fame. If he doesn’t make it via the BBWAA ballot, he’ll be a strong candidate for the Eras Committee.

These small, “second-chance” committees generally favor players with a strong “elevator pitch,” and Jones has that (10 Gold Gloves, 434 HR). Add in the fact that he’ll likely have a strong advocate (Maddux, Glavine, Smoltz, Chipper Jones, or Fred McGriff) on one of these future committees, it’s likely that Andruw has a plaque in his future.

Thanks for reading. Please follow Cooperstown Cred on X @cooperstowncred.

Chris Bodig

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