Is it just me, or is it seemingly increasingly certain that Jones is coming into the Hall of Fame?

Also, it is really odd that the list of retired numbers will be a bunch of Hall of Famers...and two centerfielders who were cruising into the Hall of Fame until they fell off a cliff in their early 30s.

Murphy has the MVPs, and I think was seen as the bigger star at his peak in the 1980s (perhaps due in part to the unique place Superstation WTBS help in the early days of cable, plus Murphy's unique choir boy image, the consecutive games streak, Gold Gloves, etc.).

But Jones had a better "dead cat bounce" period after he initially fell off the cliff, which gives him small advantages on things like HRs. More importantly, while Murphy won five GGs, Jones was transcendent defensively. He is probably the greatest defensive outfielder of my lifetime - and maybe of all time - over about a 10-year period.

So these guys, with oddly similar stories to tell, cover the Braves CF spot more or less from 1980-1989, then 1996-2007...but neither was the CF'er when they won their only WS of the era.

Is it just me, or is it seemingly increasingly certain that Jones is coming into the Hall of Fame?

He jumped up to 58 percent this year, and with four ballots left it looks very likely.

This seems like the Braves' way of helping the process along. But given his career in Atlanta, he's worthy of the honor whether he gets Cooperstown's call.

That is a very impressive list of retired numbers for a franchise.

And I assume the record for most retired numbers in the 40s.

A minor league team should retire, say, number 37, not because anybody wore it but because they just don't like it. You can have a fake grassroots "save 37" movement or the team owner can swoop in during the fake ceremony and give 37 a pardon. And the next day the entire team can wear 37.

Has anybody ever worn 49 for the 49ers? 76 for the 76ers? (They had a pretty famous 6, I assume his number retired.) 45 for the Colt 45s?

Is it just me, or is it seemingly increasingly certain that Jones is coming into the Hall of Fame?

Are you writing this from inside the Hall of Fame? That's dedication!

The Yankees have four retired numbers in the 40s for five players, with 42 double-retired for Rivera and Robinson.

And I assume the record for most retired numbers in the 40s.

It is not. The Yankees have the same number of numbers in the 40s retired, but one extra player (Mo shares 42 with Jackie, while Pettitte, Jackson and Guidry are also in the club).

Andruw's chances do look extremely good. The next ballot adds Beltre (easy 1st ballot), Mauer (going in, maybe not first ballot) and Utley (it will be interesting to see). I can see Mauer slowing down Helton and Andruw but not substantially. (Debuting with Mauer may be the worst thing for Utley.) I suppose Beltre could slow down Andruw for a year in that Beltre is the epitome of the type of player Andruw was -- excellent defense, durable, good enough bat.

Ichiro destroys all before him on the 2025 ballot -- again could slow Andruw down a bit. CC and Pedroia will stick around but neither should take votes from Andruw. (Pedroia might be a problem for Utley.)

But in 2026, the top debuts are Hamels and Braun. Helton's so close I assume he's in in 2024 or 25; Mauer I'm not sure of; Wagner either in or off the ballot. 2026 should be Andruw's year or he'll be finish so close it will be a formality. If Mauer's already in, 2026 could be a good year for Utley to make a big move.

The 2027 ballot has Posey with Jon Lester as the #2 debut. Posey will have an easy time of it (though maybe not first ballot). If Andruw is still here in his last year of eligibility, he'll go in. Good year for Beltran probably.

I hadn't really noticed Beltran. He and Andruw will move together until Andruw is in then Beltran will probably get a nice bump. I think Utley's fate is kinda tied to Mauer (peak-only C >> peak-only 2B) and Pedroia (not sure which the BBWAA will rank higher). CC gets a nice run as best SP on the ballot until Greinke/Verlander show up. The BBWAA could be content just putting in the obvious no-doubters but the big gains of Helton, Wagner, Andruw and even Sheff suggest that won't be the case. I'm really not ruling out Pedroia ... Matt Holliday might make it into the 30s.

CC gets a nice run as best SP on the ballot until Greinke/Verlander show up.

CC will be in before then. Otherwise, I think that's pretty accurate (I'm higher on Utley's chances of sticking around/slow climbing up the ballot than most here).

People don't talk about Andruw's free agent contract with the Dodgers as among the worst of all time because it was a short-term deal, but is it the worst two-year deal ever? He got $36.2 million over two years, and gave them 75 games, a .158/.256/.249 slash line, and -1.6 WAR.

7’6” Shawn Bradley wore #76 for the 76ers.

Once Andruw gets elected, the 1996 NL champion Braves will have 6 HOF players - Maddux, Glavine, Smoltz, Chipper, McGriff, and Jones (their championship team from the previous season had 5; all of the above except Andruw).

Who was the most recent World Series team to have that many (or more)? Some pre-expansion Yankees team?

Seven played for the '56 Dodgers: Campy, Jackie, Pee Wee, Gil, Duke, Sandy and Don.

Yankees living by the HR so far in 2023, with Anthony Rizzo’s 2-run shot to RF (387 feet) the latest example. 5-1 Yankees.

EDIT: Some non-HR runs make it 8-1 in the 5th, and the Phillies move to their 3rd pitcher.

#13 Well the 1928 As are kind of a cheat answer since all of Cobb, Speaker and Collins were well past prime and Collins only had 37 PAs. But that's 7.

And that's not even the top for 1928. Ruth, Gehrig, Lazzeri, Dickey, Combs, Pennock, Hoyt ... and Stan Covelski (who I didn't remember as ever playing for anybody but the Senators)

The 1930 team had 4 eventual HOF pitchers (Hoyt, Pennock, Gomez, Ruffing -- none had a good year) plus the 5 hitters above (all regulars and playing well)

#13 Well the 1928 As are kind of a cheat answer since all of Cobb, Speaker and Collins were well past prime and Collins only had 37 PAs.

Also a cheat answer because they didn't play in the World Series.

1932 yankees had 9 HOFers actually appear in the WS: Ruth, Gehrig, Dickey, Lazzeri, Sewell, Combs, Gomez, Pennock, Ruffing.

The Cubs had 4, Herman, Cuyler, Hartnett, and Grimes, so the 13 combined has to also be a record. The Cubs also had Hornsby in the regular season, but he was released before the series.

Yeah, I knew the all time leader had to be a 1920's or 1930's team that benefitted heavily from a generous VC. If the '56 Dodgers are the most recent World Series team with more than 6 HOF players, then that means the 1996 Braves are the expansion era leaders.

The 2000's Yankees were hit hard by PED snubs, otherwise the 2009 team might have (eventually) had 6 HOFers too:

In - Jeter, Rivera, eventually Sabathia

Would have been in - ARod, eventually Cano, maybe Pettitte*

* He's borderline, so it's hard to guess how many writers are snubbing him for the HGH admission, and how many just don't see him as a HOFer

The 62 Giants lost the Series but had 5 HoFers (Cepeda, Mays, McCovey, Marichal, a young Perry). The 62 Yanks add 3.

CC 251-161, 3577 IP, 116 ERA+, 62 WAR, 1 CYA
AP 256-153, 3316 IP, 117 ERA+, 61 WAR, 0 CYA (but a second place)

I don't want it to be true but that's very thin.

I don't want it to be true but that's very thin.

Pettitte always makes my vote, and I'm generally perplexed by his lack of support around here (I assume the HGH stuff is holding him back with the writers).

Regardless of how comparable those final product resumes look, CC will not wait long to go in. I'd say three years tops.

Pettitte always makes my vote, and I'm generally perplexed by his lack of support around here (I assume the HGH stuff is holding him back with the writers).

Putting aside HGH.

Slightly better peak for CC (39.4 WAR7 to 34.1).

And I actually view their postseasons as a bonus for CC. While Pettitte has the counting stats and rings, he was typically the #2 starter on very loaded staffs. The exception being 1996, when his World Series performance was as extreme as could be in his two starts (both good and bad)

When the Yankees decided to use a three-man rotation in 2009, Pettitte was obviously part of it, but CC was the one who could go 1-4-7 if needed, and I feel that's underrated.

I also want to say the CC is probably my in/out line for the Hall, so if these differences seem too slight to be significant for Hall purposes, that's why.

CC is Pettitte with a CYA award, 600 extra k's (putting him past the 3000 k milestone), twice as many All Star selections (6-3), an actual peak (5 straight top 5 CYA finishes), and no PED taint.

When we're talking about borderline players, those aren't minor differences (even ignoring that the HGH thing is an automatic disqualifier for many). Narrative points like these are why contemporary outfielders Vlad Guerrero (59 WAR) and Bobby Abreu (60 WAR) saw such vastly different treatment from the writers, or curse breaking Red Sox teammates David Ortiz (55 WAR) vs Johnny Damon (56 WAR).

Putting aside HGH.

Slightly better peak for CC (39.4 WAR7 to 34.1).

I'm not perplexed at his lack of support vis a vis CC. Sabbathia's a better candidate, which is why I'm telling Walt he'll get in fairly quickly.

I'm just surprised at Pettitte's lack of support, period. He's a 60 bWAR, 68fWAR pitcher who added a supersized and better than typical Andy Pettitte season in the playoffs (276 innings of slightly better ERA and much better RA, which should elevate him above his comparables such as Buehrle and Hudson).

I get why the BBWAA might oppose him because of their PEDophobia, but the lack of support from Primates who don't share that POV is a little surprising.

CC 251-161, 3577 IP, 116 ERA+, 62 WAR, 1 CYA
AP 256-153, 3316 IP, 117 ERA+, 61 WAR, 0 CYA (but a second place)

MR 82-60, 1284 IP, 205 ERA+, 56 WAR, 0 CYA (but a second place)

(edited to add: 46 WAR if you take away the "leverage bonus")

the lack of support from Primates who don't share that POV is a little surprising.

And I was telling you why I, putting PEDs aside, don't support him. Because CC is my in and out line, and he's not as good. It's the same reason Wells isn't in, and the reason David Cone is.

But overall, Pettitte just always struck me as a #2 starter. Probably because almost every time the Yankees were in an ALDS, Pettitte was, in fact, starting Game 2 (after Wells, Cone, Mussina, Clemens etc. pitched G1).

And I think he is sort of viewed as someone who was very good and had the beneficiary of being on great teams rather than being a leading cause as to why they were great. Whether that's fair or not to him is up to the viewer

A minor league team should retire, say, number 37, not because anybody wore it but because they just don't like it.

Fun fact: There has never been a TV station on channel 37 in North America because the frequency interferes with radio telescopes.

1993 Jays were the first team I thought to check, but they only had four (Morris, Rickey, Molitor, Aloma). Dave Winfield was the previous season. Carlos Delgado played 2 games in ‘93, and is a long shot VC candidate.

Also: Andruw was one of the coolest players of his day. Playing shallow, wraparound shades, kind of a spare tire build (especially as he moved past rookie status). Lots of kids in Braves Country wanted to be like him.

#30 - On the flipside though, I had a friend who didn't like Andruw because of the silly way his first name was spelled.

Ah, the quirky irrationalities of sports fandom!

The only Boston Braves on that list are Spahn and Mathews, and Mathews just barely.

Are there any (exclusive) Boston Braves who might merit a uniform retirement? George Stallings? Wally Berger? Bob Elliott?

To twist a line from Bill James: If you could split Andruw Jones’ career in half, you’d have one Hall of Famer.

But you can’t, and that complicates things.

Through his age-30 season, Andruw Jones hit .263/.342/.497/113 OPS+. Respectable, but not particularly noteworthy.

But here’s the thing: Through his age-30 season, Jones is also the best defensive center fielder to ever play the game. It’s true that defensive metrics prior to the advent of the Statcast era can be squishy — but the gulf between Jones and the number two man on the list (Paul Blair) is so vast, it more than exceeds any margin of error.

Between his respectable hitting and non-pareil defense, Jones was an extraordinarily valuable player, accumulating 61 WAR through age 30. If you prefer some old-school statistics, Jones also hit 368 HR — the ninth most ever by a player through his age 30 season. A graceful decline makes him a no-brainer for the HOF. Even an extended decline — with a rough landing — probably makes him an easy choice.

But Andruw Jones didn’t decline. He collapsed. Andruw Jones got hurt, got fat, and fell off a cliff at the age of 31. The best center fielder to ever grace a ballfield was relegated to DH and spot starts in left field. It was like watching Jimi Hendrix play Creed covers at a local bar. Over the last five seasons of his career, he hit .210/.316/.424/95 OPS+ as a platoon player. He was out of baseball at age 36.

Andruw Jones in his 20s is a lock HOFer; Andruw Jones in his 30s is a fringe player. Does he belong in the HOF? His career WAR (63) marks him the very definition of “borderline.”

If I had a vote, he'd be on the right side of that border and in the HOF. Based on recent trends, he could be on his way...

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Ugh. I'm sorry for the duplicate posts, guys. Something was up with the site. Is there a way to delete?

"It’s true that defensive metrics prior to the advent of the Statcast era can be squishy..."

But that's precisely the rub, isn't it? Paul Blair and Willie Mays and Tris Speaker look inferior precisely because they lacked the evaluative tools that would have allowed them to be compared on the same baseline as Andruw. Get in your time machine and use them to see how these old-timers did (Willie Mays as an old timer boggles my mind...but he is 92 years old now), and then you can dare make the comparison. For all we know Andruw would finish say 10th in such a lineup.

Plus the error bars on WAR are such that you cannot confidently proclaim that he gained X wins, again partly because of the inexactness of even the more modern defensive metrics. He'd thus be on the no side for me since his candidacy hinges much more crucially on them than does any other contemporary candidate (Edmonds/Lofton >ahem<), and I cannot be sure that he actually had the very high value that they indicate. We have Chris Dial's poaching theory, for one.

[Note the same issues which make people skeptical of Andruw's high numbers, in TZ at least, also bedevil Lofton's]

@37: Fair points, all. In fact, I recall Bill James and Joe Posnanski discussing this very topic (on an episode of Posnanski's podcast). James (an avowed WAR curmudgeon) and JoePos (a soft skeptic but generally supportive) used Mays/Jones as THE example of why defensive WAR is essentially useless. The argument was essentially "I don't give a #### what WAR says--there is no way Andruw Jones was significantly better than Willie Mays in centerfield. No. #######. Way."

So... yeah. Your comment has me thinking: The statement I made re exceeding the margin of error was... made in error. I think a more accurate accounting would be that Jones is obviously one of the greatest defensive CF to ever roam the turf (one man's poacher is another man's ballhawk). But demonstrably better than Mays, Blair, Speaker? Nah. My bad.

If you could split Andruw Jones’ career in half, you’d have one Hall of Famer.

But you can’t, and that complicates things.

Much the same could be said about Griffey, Jr. After age 30,

Jones, ~1400 PA, 0.8 WAR/650 PA
Griffey, ~4000 PA, 1.2 WAR/650 PA

Certainly, different forms of collapse, but both are significant, and I don't see splitting Griffey's career in half à la James' statement about Jones as a complicating thing.

"I don't give a #### what WAR says--there is no way Andruw Jones was significantly better than Willie Mays in centerfield. No. #######. Way."

IIRC, early defensive stats had Andruw as something like Willie Mays plus 50%, which absolutely should be tripping some BS detectors. The man wasn't 50% faster than Mays, he didn't get 50% better jumps, etc. (replace 50% with whatever percentage it actually was).

At one point I read a study that tracked down the extra plays, and they were mostly infield popups that Jones was able to field because he played such a short center field. Elective plays that were highly likely to be outs regardless of who caught them.

Put another way: I don't think there are enough chances in center field to be significantly better than Willie Mays. His career RF/9 is 2.68, with a high of 3.08 at age 23. Jones's career is also 2.68, with a high of 3.16 at age 20. Where are all the plays that are generating this extra value?

I used to go back and forth on Jones, but I've mostly settled on not getting too worked up about the specifics of his defensive WAR relating to Mays/Blair etc. Here's my stance:

He was, by most stances, an elite defensive player at a premium defensive position, while being a good overall hitter and an excellent power hitter. He didn't have the longest career, but he had more plate appearances than Scott Rolen, so I hardly think it was too short.

To me, an elite defensive CF with 430 HR is Hall of Fame worthy. There are bigger issues with CF and guys like Edmonds and Lofton's exclusions, but I think Jones fits into a broad category of players — elite defense at a premium position and good offensive player — that we need more of in the Hall

IIRC, early defensive stats had Andruw as something like Willie Mays plus 50%, which absolutely should be tripping some BS detectors. The man wasn't 50% faster than Mays, he didn't get 50% better jumps, etc. (replace 50% with whatever percentage it actually was).

Both Sean@BBRef and Meg Rowley@Fangraphs have talked about the deficiencies of WAR accuracy with respect to historical players. Given how strenuously both BBRef and Fangraphs strenuously objected to using WAR as a measure for evaluating today's players for postseason awards, imagine how vehemently they'd object to the use of bWAR or fWAR for evaluating Tris Speaker's defense.

Tris Speaker is another CF who played very short and got involved in some infield plays.

If you go way back, some defensive metrics had Napoleon LaJoie as a superstar defender, which put his total value above Ruth(!).

If you follow Sabermetrics for a while, it's not uncommon for some defensive metric to line up with some idiosyncracy of a great or near great player and thereby put him forth as The Greatest Player Ever.

Sometimes the metric has a point, sometimes it's just some subtlety of how different styles of play translate to the recorded stats.

I don't think Jones's HOF case revolves around being far and away the greatest CF ever. 10 Gold Gloves is a pretty unambiguous endorsement in its own right, and 430 homers is 430 homers. He played for a very visible team that had great pitching success due in part to great defense.

My guess is that he'll be a very attractive candidate.

If you go way back, some defensive metrics had Napoleon LaJoie as a superstar defender, which put his total value above Ruth(!).

Bill James wrote about this. Lajoie, because of who he was (not just the team captain, the team was friggin named after him), he got all the discretionary plays in the IF. If there was a popup that he could reach, it was his. Not a lot of extra value in that.

His career RF/9 is 2.68, with a high of 3.08 at age 23. Jones's career is also 2.68, with a high of 3.16 at age 20. Where are all the plays that are generating this extra value?

The 1997 Braves pitching staff had a 19.8% K rate compared to 11.7% for the 1954 Giants. We don't have GB/FB rates but the Braves also had a higher GO/FO rate than the Giants. So it seems very possible that Mays had more opportunities to make plays than Jones did.

That being said, it's possible that Mays is being undervalued by the defensive metrics just like it's possible that Jones is being overvalued. They are being evaluated using two different types of data and can't be directly compared.

I'm under the impression that the consensus is that Jones did benefit from discretionary plays (he was certainly a phenomenal defender in center, don't get me wrong) and that this has been pretty well studied. Maybe I'm just over-remembering Dial here?
I'm a little surprised that his conviction for DV doesn't get mentioned more in his HOF discussions? (Absent this, he'd be -just- over my HOF line...)

Nothing to do with nothing but - I lived in Greensboro in 1995, which was then (as it is now) in the South Atlantic League and I got to watch a very young Andruw and Vlad a bunch that season. I was SUPER hyped about both of them - which was more luck than good or obvious prognostication (they had cool names and were very good/interesting in rookie ball) - and I still treasure some of those memories. So, thanks for that, Andruw.