If you were to ask Atlanta Braves fans to build an all-time starting lineup, it wouldn't be surprising to see some arguments at certain positions, especially in places where the club hasn't had an all-time great grace the position.
What you wouldn't expect, however, is for one of those all-time greats to be excluded from the list altogether. However, that's just what happened when MLB Network's Matt Vasgersian and Harold Reynolds put together their "Franchise Favorites" for the Braves, as one of the two analysts felt that Chipper Jones was not worthy of an inclusion (along with Freddie Freeman, but that is a separate discussion entirely).
Matt Vasgersian and Harold Reynolds will put together their “Franchise Favorites” for each club over the next six weeks.
— MLB Network (@MLBNetwork) January 5, 2026
Who would you include on the Braves team? pic.twitter.com/MRfgoB52d9
Chipper Jones inexplicably absent from MLB Network all-time Braves lineup
Jones is one of the greatest third basemen in MLB history. The switch-hitter ranks fifth all-time in bWAR among players who played 70% of their games at third base, behind only Mike Schmidt, Eddie Mathews (another Braves legend), Adrian Beltré, and Wade Boggs. In essentially every category you can think of, Jones is a top-10 third baseman, at the very worst.
Of course, Jones is competing against Mathews, who also happens to be top-10 in nearly every single category imaginable, and also spent all but two seasons with the Braves franchise. If a baseball analyst chose Mathews over Jones, it might draw some looks, but it would certainly be defensible.
However, when Matt Vasgersian drafted his list for his favorites for the Braves lineup, he not only skipped over Jones, he relegated Mathews to DH, a position that did not exist in either league during his MLB career.
Instead of going with the two obvious choices, he instead decided to pencil in 1991 NL MVP Terry Pendleton at third base. Of course, Pendleton was not a bad player, after all he did take home an MVP. However, not only was Pendleton's entire body of success with the Braves significantly worse on average compared to Mathews and Jones, Pendleton only played five total seasons with the Braves.
The duo was clear that they were not selecting players based on their stats, but purely who they enjoyed watching the most. Vasgersian explained that he left off the lifelong Brave because he loved watching Pendleton play, but that type of rationale only makes sense as a tiebreaker when trying to decide between a handful of solid players, not an all-time great who played 12 seasons in this century.