It looks like Marlon Byrd is healthy, and having a good enough to the point where Andruw Jones doesn't have a spot on the roster. That's pretty bad Andruw. Marlon Byrd hasn't lived up to his hype when he was young on the Phillies, but he's far from being a bad player. He can play all the OF positions, basically hits around 290 and has a little pop. He's pretty much the perfect 4th OF, and teams can do much worse than having Byrd as their starting LF.
But still, Andruw Jones isn't good enough to beat out Marlon Byrd for a spot on the Rangers? Let's recap this story a little. In 2005 Jones smacked 51 homers at age 28. It's safe to say that's a reasonable time for someones peak, and that the following years Jones should come close to that level albeit with a slow decline. In 2006 he hit 41 homers, not as much as his peak year the year before but certainly a gold glove caliber CF hitting 40 homers a year is valuable. It looked like Jones would sort of settle into that as he reached his 30s. In 2007 however at only 30 years old Jones hit only 22 homers batting .222/.311/.41, pretty awful considering it was his walk year. Jones seemed to confirm the belief about players magical 27/28 year seasons, and totally crush the belief about career years in walk years. Anyways, the Dodgers felt Jones' 2007 was more of a fluke and signed him to a 2 year $36m deal.
They may have been overpaying, but for only a 2 year deal the Dodgers got a great fielding CF only 1 year removed from 40 homers and 2 years from 50 homers and only 31 years old. Even in his off year in 2007, Jones was worth almost 4 wins above replacement. Something in between his 2007 and 2008 would make him basically worth the deal the Dodgers were paying him. In 2008 as we all know, Jones was laughably bad. In 209 abs he batted.158/.256/.249, striking out 76 times. His fielding took a hit too. In the years prior his UZR was basically 20, in 2008 it was 1.2. Jones went from saving about 20 runs more than an average CF to being well, an average CF. In 2007 his glove carried his bad bat. In 2008 his bat got worse and his glove crumbled under the weight it had to carry.
Andruw Jones is 32 years old, and he's virtually done with baseball. AT 30 years old Jones had 368 HRs. He hit a home run in the World Series at age 19, the youngest ever. It's safe to say with a reasonable decline, or even a fairly rapid decline Jones would touch 500 homers. Jones didn't have a sensational start to his career, he didn't put up the numbers that Arod or Pujols did, but they were impressive nonetheless. Plus if you factor today's fielding metrics, Jones' dominant fielding would more or less make up for where his bat lagged. Basically, it's safe to say Andruw Jones was going to be a Hall of Famer, or at least was going to be deserving. 30 years old, 368 HRs and 10 Gold Gloves. But now it looks like Jones' line will more or less be what it is right now.
The Rangers have several quality OFs and don't have room at DH, but you still would think Jones would have enough left in the tank to make the Rangers. Jones' past is impressive enough for other teams to give him a shot so it's possible that he can resurrect his career I guess, I'm just not buying it. Mark Wohlers, Rick Ankiel, Chuck Knoblauch, and others have collapsed completely healthy because of the mental aspect of baseball. To my knowledge there is nothing wrong with Jones mentally. At 32 years old where most players are just exiting their prime years, Andruw Jones seems like a washed up 42 year old looking for one last hurrah. I'd love for Jones to prove me wrong, but let me ask you this, right now would you rather have Luis Gonzalez or Andruw Jones? Hell maybe you'd take Juan Gonzalez.
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