Who's on the Atlanta Braves Mount Rushmore?

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The Braves franchise has had a lot of great players. From the former home run king to some of the greatest pitchers to ever take the mound. In its 152-year history, the 46 Hall-of-Famers have played for the franchise.

Some, like Bruce Sutter or Gaylord Perry, only had brief stints with the team en route to Cooperstown, but others played their entire career with the team.

Of every player to ever put on a Braves uniform, which four would be represented on the Braves Mount Rushmore? Is it the greatest Braves of all time? Is it simply the Braves who had the biggest influence on the team? Our list weighs both.

Honorable Mentions

Freddie Freeman

In an alternate universe, where the 2021-2022 offseason played out differently, the Braves' former 1B would easily find himself on the Braves' Mount Rushmore in a year or two. Instead, his incredible 12-year stint with the team leaves him behind other Braves' greats.

Andruw Jones

The only Brave in franchise history to eclipse 50 homers in a season (although this sentence will probably be inaccurate in about forty days), Jones was much better known for his glove. Unfortunately, the 10-time Gold Glove winner's career had a drastic downturn after he left Atlanta, and his time with the Braves did not last nearly as long as some other great Braves.

Tom Glavine

The 17-year Brave is a tough omit from the four-headed monument. Not only did he pitch eight-shutout innings on the Braves World Series clincher in 1995, he also won two Cy Young Awards and was a 10-time All-Star. His greatest flaw is simply the greatness and influence of other Braves.

John Smoltz

It's tough to omit the Braves' all-time strikeout leader, but, like his former rotation mate, there are other Braves who simply had greater success, greater, influence, or both. Smoltz spent 20 seasons with the Braves.

Phil Niekro

Niekro's playing career with the Braves was so extensive, that he not only played two seasons with the Milwaukee Braves, he was also teammates with Tom Glavine, who wasn't even alive when the Braves moved to Atlanta. The knuckleballer's longevity was his calling card. Despite only making five All-Star Games and never winning a Cy Young, he has the 11th-highest bWAR among pitchers in MLB history.

Eddie Mathews

Eddie Mathews is likely the best 3B in Braves history. In 15 seasons, he hit 493 homers and put up 94 bWAR with the Braves. He's also the only player in history to play for the team in Boston, Milwaukee, and Atlanta. Despite this, a different Braves' 3B is on the team's Mount Rushmore.

Greg Maddux

Maddux is often in the discussion for the greatest pitcher of all time but he doesn't quite make the cut for the Braves' Mount Rushmore. Despite the bulk of his dominant years with the Braves, Maddux played less than half his career with Atlanta.

The Atlanta Braves Mount Rushmore

Dale Murphy

Atlanta Braves v San Diego Padres / Owen C. Shaw/GettyImages

After not including some of the best players of all time from the Braves' Mount Rushmore, it feels weird to turn around and choose Dale Murphy, a guy who is not in the Hall of Fame, to be on it.

Hear me out.

While Maddux, Smoltz, Glavine, and Mathews (and to an extent, Niekro), all spent their Braves tenure alongside other excellent Braves, Murphy did not. The two-time MVP's most notable teammates during the prime of his career were Bob Horner and Phil Niekro, already in his 40s.

Ted Turner had only just started airing the Braves on TBS a few years before Murphy's debut. So, for a lot of Braves fans across the U.S., Murphy was the first star they latched on to.

In the 80s, during Murphy's stardom, the Braves made the playoffs for the first time since 1969, he won two MVPs in a row, won five Gold Gloves, four Silver Sluggers, and was an All-Star seven times. Murphy was easily the face of the franchise and no one else was close.

Murphy gets the Rushmore nod partially on his stats – it's not like he was a Jeff Blauser type – but mostly because he's responsible for a great deal of Braves fans who came along before the 90s.

Also, he had an incredible first pitch during the 2021 NLCS that I still think about. Only one guy rocked the pearls better than Murph in that postseason.

Warren Spahn

Milwaukee Braves / Focus On Sport/GettyImages

If Maddux had played more years with Atlanta, this spot would easily be his. Smoltz's time in the bullpen and Glavine's five-year tenure with the Mets also make it difficult to choose the two here. This spot could also easily belong to Niekro.

Even though Spahn never played for the Braves in Atlanta, he is easily the best pitcher in franchise history. Despite missing three full seasons due to his military service, Spahn still managed to hit 100 bWAR as a player.

In the 1940s, when the team was still in Boston, the Boston Post published a four-line poem called, "Spahn and Sain and pray for rain" which was about how dominant Spahn and his teammate, Johnny Sain, were on the mound. The year it was published, the two pitched in 78 games.

In his 21-year career (20 of which he spent with the Braves), Spahn pitched 5243.2 innings, won 363 games (356 with the Braves), and 3.09 career ERA. He's also tied for 26th on the Braves franchise leaderboard in saves with 28 saves.

Spahn also a great hitter. He has the third-most homers by a pitcher in MLB history with 35, behind only Wes Ferrell and Bob Lemon.

Chipper Jones

BBN-METS-BRAVES-01 / STEVE SCHAEFER/GettyImages

Chipper Jones, the only Braves lifer on this list, easily takes a spot on the Braves' Mount Rushmore. Despite making his debut in 1993, after the Braves' string of 14 straight division titles, Jones managed to rise up and become the face of the franchise.

Jones played 19 seasons for the Braves and was a first-ballot Hall-of-Famer. He is one of only 32 players in MLB history to have .300/.400/.500 slash line or better for their entire career (although somehow he only won two silver sluggers). He was the MVP in 1999 and was an All-Star eight times.

There's not much to debate whether Jones belongs on Rushmore or not. If anything, the argument should be why Jones has fewer Silver Sluggers than an obviously Coors-aided Vinny Castilla.

Hank Aaron

Sports Contributor Archive 2020 / Ron Vesely/GettyImages

Another obvious face of the Braves, Hank Aaron isn't just the greatest Brave of all time, he's also arguably one of the greatest hitters to ever play Major League Baseball. The former home run king hit 733 of his 755 homers with the Braves. Aaron had 3771 hits in his career, meaning that even if you subtracted his home runs, he'd still have 3000 hits.

Aaron won the World Series with the club in 1957, appeared in 25 All-Star games (all but one of those was with the Braves), and compiled 143 bWAR, the seventh-best in MLB history.

Aaron also played a huge role in the team after his retirement. In fact, one hire is still influencing the team on the field today. He was responsible for hiring Brian Snitker, the Braves' current manager.

When fans think of the history of the Atlanta Braves, it's very hard to not think of Hammerin' Hank.

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