Number two – Larry
In 1990 Todd Van Poppel told the Atlanta Braves not to draft him, so they drafted Larry Wayne – Chipper Jones. Van Poppel didn’t last that long, but Chipper Jones remained the Atlanta Braves third baseman – with a detour to left field – for 19 years.
Chipper finished second to Hideo Nomo in Rookie of the 1995 Year voting and #18 in NL MVP voting. In 1996 he earned the first of eight All-Star game nods and finished fourth in the MVP race. He would finish in the top ten five times, including winning the award in 1999
He’s a career .303/.401/.529/.930, 141 OPS+, batter with 468 homers, third on the all-time switch-hitting list behind his boyhood idol Mickey Mantle and Eddie Murray and 549 doubles rank fourth on that list.
No teams wanted to see Chipper come to the plate in a position to win the game, particularly the Mets.
Jones owned the Mets, finishing his career batting .309/.406/.543/.949 with 49 homers against them. He liked hitting in Shea Stadium so much he named his son Shea; Jones batted a career .313/.407/.557/.964 with 19 homers there.
Jones entered the Hall of Fame on the first ballot in 2018, getting 410 votes and being ignored by 12 imbeciles.
His Hall of Fame page describes Jones like this.
". . . Jones seemed to improve with age – winning his first batting title at the age of 36 in 2008 when he hit .364 while also leading the NL in on-base percentage with a mark of .470. At the end of his 19 years in the big leagues – all with the Braves – Jones had totaled 2,726 hits, 468 home runs and more walks (1,512) than strikeouts (1,409). He was named to eight All-Star Games and finished in the Top 10 of the NL MVP voting five times."
Fans who grew up with the Atlanta Braves see Chipper as the face of the Atlanta Braves and their third baseman, but one third-baseman played with the Braves in Boston, Milwaukee, and Atlanta. He’s number one on my list.