We have reached the stage of the Hall of Fame voting process where we can start getting a real sense as to who is going to get inducted. Leading the way at the moment is Carlos Beltran who, with 208 public ballots thanks to Ryan Thibodaux's Hall of Fame tracker, has appeared on 89.1% of known ballots. However, the player with the second-most votes in this class just happens to be Atlanta Braves legend Andruw Jones.
Jones' difficulty in getting into the Hall of Fame has been well documented at this point and most have long since chosen their sides. Jones' detractors often point to how poorly he played at the end of his career along with the relative lack of counting stats and accomplishments while his champions argue that he was among the best players in baseball period during his peak and he has a strong case for being the best defensive centerfielder of all time.
This year, his second to last year of HOF eligibility, voters seem to be gravitating to Jones on what is otherwise a pretty weak ballot. So far, Jones looks to be in good shape at 83.6% given that the threshold for induction into Cooperstown is 75%. However, all signs point to a photo finish for Jones when the 2026 Hall of Fame voting results are announced on Tuesday, January 20.
Andruw Jones has a real chance of getting into the Hall of Fame this year, but Braves fans should remain cautiously optimistic
The problem that Jones faces is with the minority of voters that seem hellbent on only inducting the absolute best players who don't even have a whiff of controversy around them. These are largely older and/or retired voters and around four dozen of them keep their ballots private for whatever reason. Jones has generally appeared on less than half of those private ballots and they were a big reason why he missed induction last year.
This year is a bit different, though. There are a number of new voters and they seem to be largely giving Jones their votes and there are several examples of voters who didn't vote for Jones previously deciding to give him a shot. If these trends hold, all that Jones really needs to do is perform maybe a touch better with the private voters and/or have a situation when some of the voters who didn't vote for him don't cast ballots this year.
Those scenarios could easily happen this year, but that is why predicting the outcome of Jones' Hall of Fame candidacy is so difficult this year. If he can keep his percentage around 83.6% the rest of the way, which way the private voters break won't matter as much and he could get in with a voting percentage in the high 70's% range. If his support dips, Jones might be on the outside looking in again.