Could Andruw Jones finally be making his way back to Major League Baseball after two seasons in Japan? According to Nick Cafardo of the Boston Globe, there’s reason to believe that Jones will be at least going to Spring Training with an MLB club.
After two seasons with Rakuten in Japan, where he hit 26 home runs with 94 RBIs (.845 OPS) and 24 homers with 71 RBIs (.820 OPS), with OBPs of .391 and .394, Jones will be returning to major league baseball. Agent Scott Boras claims there are at least two teams interested in Jones as a DH and/or righthanded platoon player. A 10-time Gold Glove outfielder, Jones would return with 434 homers and 1,289 RBIs.
Jones’s reputation was crushed after his disastrous 2008 season with the Dodgers when he hit a pathetic .158/.256/.249 over just 75 games. That was the first season of a two-year, $36.2 million deal that the Dodgers ended up eating just 13 months after they signed Jones.
He did spent the next four seasons in the majors with the Rangers, White Sox, and Yankees, making a total of just $4.5 million over those four seasons and hitting .221/.328/.461 with 63 homers in 360 games. Sure, those numbers are a far cry from the prime Andruw Jones that roamed center field for the Braves, but there was still value there.
Jones will be 38 in April, and isn’t an every day player by any stretch of the imagination. But he could definitely provide some right-handed pop off the bench for a team needing some power. His .240 ISO over those four post-LA seasons slotted him right between Ryan Braun and Nelson Cruz on the MLB leaderboard. The only players in baseball to have a higher ISO than Jones and a higher walk rate over those four seasons? Jose Bautista, Jim Thome, David Ortiz, Prince Fielder, and Joey Votto. Not bad company.
