The Atlanta Braves have fifty-six players in the National Baseball Hall of Fame that were members of the organization, ranging from part timers like manager Joe Torre (managed Atlanta from 1982-1984) to legends that spent the predominant majority of their career with the team, like Hank Aaron.
And hopefully, in one week we find out that the total's now fifty-seven.
Former Braves outfielder Andruw Jones is on the ballot for his 7th year, out of a maximum ten years. After falling short of the required 75% for induction last season with a 58.3% vote share, where does Jones stand this year?
Per the excellent Ryan Thibodaux and the Hall of Fame Ballot Tracker Team, Jones is sitting at 71.9% vote share out of the 160 known ballots to be cast, coming in just short of what he'd need for induction if this were the final totals.
Of the outstanding ballots, Jones needs 173 votes, or 77.2% vote share, to hit the 75% vote threshold for induction. Unless something changes, it's doubtful that Jones is part of next year's Baseball Hall of Fame class.
And that's a shame. Because he's a worthy candidate.
Jones is one of only four outfielders to have ever won exactly 10 Gold Glove Awards. The other three were Ken Griffey Jr., Al Kaline, and Ichiro Suzuki. The first two of those guys are both first-ballot Hall of Famer and Suzuki will be a shoe-in Hall of Famer as well.
Let’s go a step further. Overall, there have been 15 non-pitchers to win at least 10 Gold Gloves. Only four of them also hit at least 400 home runs: Mays, Griffey, Mike Schmidt, and Jones. That’s right, another list comprised entirely of first-ballot Hall of Famers, plus Jones.
Between 1998 and 2007 when looking at WAR, he ranked third at 57.6, behind only Alex Rodriguez (80.0) and Barry Bonds (71.0), and just ahead of three players tied with 54.9: Chipper Jones, Rockies first baseman Todd Helton, who’s also on this year’s ballot; and Albert Pujols.
From anecdotal evidence, the arguments against Jones seem to boil down to the severe drop-off he faced once he hit the age 30. Despite debuting at the age of 19 and accumulating 61.0 WAR by the age of 30, his final five injury-marred seasons resulted in only 1.7 WAR before he retired.
Maybe this year ends up being the one in which he finally makes it, but it's not looking too good from the early voting results.
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