The latest on Andruw Jones' HOF bid

This story was excerpted from Mark Bowman’s Braves Beat newsletter. To read the full newsletter, click here. And subscribe to get it regularly in your inbox.

It doesn’t appear Andruw Jones will be elected to the Hall of Fame this year. But it looks like the former Braves center fielder will have reason to be encouraged by the latest ballot results when they are announced on Jan. 24.

• Hall of Fame releases 28-name 2023 ballot

Ryan Thibodaux (known as @NotMrTibbs on Twitter) has annually gifted us by keeping a tally of Hall of Fame votes made public by eligible voters. The latest look at his tracker showed that Jones had appeared on 70 percent of the more than 150 ballots Thibodaux has placed in his system.

History has shown the vote totals on the tracker are slightly higher than what the official results will be. So, Jones may end up somewhere between 60-65 percent, just shy of the 75 percent needed to be elected. But it’s also an indication that with four eligible years remaining on the ballot, Jones will likely soon become the latest Braves player to be immortalized in Cooperstown.

Yes, Jones is a deserving Hall of Famer. But it didn’t look like he might eventually be elected back in 2018, when he received 7.3 percent of the votes, or in '19, when he received 7.5 percent of the votes. Candidates who receive less than five percent are removed from the ballot.

Fortunately for Jones, his support has risen over the past three years, going from 19.4 percent (2020) to 33.9 percent ('21) to 41.4 percent ('22). If he gets near 60 percent this year, Braves fans might want to begin planning another pilgrimage to Cooperstown within the next few years.

Jones was a no-doubt Hall of Famer before he declined both offensively and defensively once he turned 30. Yeah, it was a premature fade for a player whose talents were on display as he homered in his first two World Series at-bats, when he was just 19. But the 10-time Gold Glove Award winner is still regarded by some as the best defensive outfielder in baseball history and he produced a full decade of excellence.

Jones produced MLB's third-best WAR from 1998-2007. The two players who ranked ahead of him within this span were Barry Bonds and Alex Rodriguez. The man ranked immediately behind him was his longtime Braves teammate Chipper Jones, who received a first-ballot HOF induction in 2018.

How great was Jones defensively? He led all Major Leaguers with a 26.6 defensive bWAR during his 11 full seasons (1997-2007) with the Braves. Hall of Famer Ivan Rodriguez ranked second with 16.5.

I’ve always thought that, if Ozzie Smith is in the Hall of Fame because of his defensive greatness, Jones deserves the same. There’s also a part of me that wonders whether Jones would have already been elected had he retired like Sandy Koufax did at just 30 years old?

Of course, the $50 million Jones made beyond his 30-year-old season has probably made it a little easier for him to wait on being bestowed with baseball’s top honor.