Today, Sunday, July 26, 2026, former Atlanta Braves center fielder Andruw Jones will officially be inducted into baseball’s Hall of Fame. Jones gained election on his ninth and penultimate year on the ballot by baseball’s writers and will be joined in the 2026 class by fellow center fielder Carlos Beltran and second baseman Jeff Kent.
Jones is arguably the greatest defensive center fielder in baseball history who is, at worse, in the discussion as the best with all-time great Willie Mays and a handful of others such as long-time big leaguer Jim Edmonds. Only Mays and Hall of Famer Roberto Clemente earned more Gold Gloves than Jones as outfielders.
Jones gained election with 78.4-percent of the vote and is the latest – and likely the last – player from the Braves’ legendary run of greatness from 1991 through 2005 to gain enshrinement in the Hall of Fame. That Braves dynasty included 14 division championships, five National League pennants and the 1995 World Series championship.
Jones, who was signed by the Braves as a teenager out of Curaçao, debuted with Atlanta in 1996 at age 19 and made history when be was the youngest player to homer in the World Series that same season. He spent 12 seasons in Atlanta winning ten consecutive Gold Gloves beginning in 1998 and ending in 2007, his final year with the Braves.
Jones was also a five-time All-Star, a Silver Slugger and the TSN Player of the Year in 2005 when he led the National League with a career-best 51 home runs and 128 RBI.
After leaving Atlanta, Jones’ career went into a tailspin, playing for four different organizations in five seasons – the Los Angeles Dodgers, Texas Rangers, Chicago White Sox and New York Yankees. Despite playing in no fewer than 153 games from 1997 through 2007 with the Braves, Jones only eclipsed 100 games played once in his final five campaigns. His MLB career would conclude in 2012, despite only being 35 years old. He played two more seasons in Japan before officially retiring in February 2016 after two unsuccessful attempts to make a MLB comeback.
Those final five season of his career is what likely prevented Jones from gaining election earlier in his eligibility cycle. Despite those struggles, ultimately, the Hall of Fame did call Jones for election.
In 17 big league seasons, Jones played in 2,196 and slugged 434 home runs. He also stole 152 bases, drove in 1,289 runs and scored 1,204 times while collecting 1,933 hits. Fangraphs credits him with 67.0 fWAR, including six seasons of 6.0 fWAR or higher and three seasons exceeding 7.0.
Defensively, Jones was in a class almost to himself. The video embedded above from MLB’s Vault showcases a number of his highlights – so if you weren’t able to watch Jones glide through the outfield, dive in every directions to make catches or climb on or crash into outfield walls, it is worth watching.
With incredible range and an innate ability to play shallow in center field and go back on the ball, rarely did it seem that a fly ball hit between the left fielder and right fielder was not within his catch radius. As a center fielder only, he had 4,457 putouts – with less than 200 of those coming with teams other than the Braves.
Although advanced defensive metric were not available for most of his career – especially during his peak – Baseball Reference does rank him as the 22nd best defensive player of all-time and the top-ranked center fielder.
Two decades after his peak, Jones was a player whose black-and-white stats don’t paint the full picture of who he was defensively. His instincts in the outfield were elite. Based on the pitcher throwing, the catcher set-up per pitch, etc., Jones was often in motion as a pitch was being thrown.
On the field, for more than a decade, Jones was the best in the game defensively with an above average offensive profile that concluded with a career .486 slugging percentage (and a .497 slugging percentage with the Braves). Only once between 1998 and 2006 did he post a wRC+ below 112.
Injuries and off-the-field issues contributed to a decline in performance after his age 29 season. He did rebound slightly as a platoon corner outfielder and designated hitter in the final seasons of his MLB career. He also had success in Japan, hitting 50 home runs across two seasons with Rakuten.
He is a member of the Braves Hall of Fame and his number 25 was retired in 2023.
Coverage the Hall of Fame induction ceremony can be seen on July 26, 2026 starting at 1:30PM Eastern on MLB Network.
Read the full article here