Yankees on the 2026 BBWAA Hall of Fame Ballot - Migratory Mashers
All of the BBWAA votes are in for this year's Hall of Fame ballot but the results won't be announced until January 20th. Until then, there will be a whole lot of speculation as to who will make the cut to be enshrined in Cooperstown this summer. Let's add to the chaos!
Of the 27 former players up for election, six of them spent at least a portion of their career as a Yankee. As we do every year, we'll take a close look at the career of each of them and give an honest assessment as to their chances of earning a bronze plaque in the most exclusive room in baseball. First up, we'll take a look at three players who spent a lot of time changing uniforms, especially late in their careers. Each of them was a multiple-time All-Star in their playing days and one might even get the nod from the BBWAA this year thanks to his reputation as one of the greatest fielders who ever lived.
For each player, their JAWS (Jaffe Average WAR Score, developed by Jay Jaffe) value is given along with the average Hall of Famer's JAWS at the player's position. JAWS is a Hall of Fame rating system based on WAR that incorporates both career and peak value. If you're interested in learning more about this, click here.
Andruw Jones - Center Fielder, JAWS: 54.6, HoF JAWS: 58.0
The Hall of Fame case for Andruw Jones may have been doomed before it even started. As a young player he often drew comparisons to fellow center fielder Willie Mays, which ensured that no matter what he did he would fall short of expectations. What he did though, was pretty damn impressive.
Any conversation about Jones should always start with his supreme fielding ability. At 6-foot-1 and 225 pounds he had astonishing range for a big man with an arm that could gun down runners from anywhere in the outfield. Per Baseball Reference's Runs from Fielding metric, he is by far the greatest player to patrol the outfield in baseball history, and fifth all-time at any position. This would appear to be no fluke as he earned 10 straight Gold Gloves from 1998 through 2007 in support of some all-time great pitching staffs for the Atlanta Braves.
Jones still had his detractors. Some felt he played a lazy center field and could actually have been better. After all, he was not an effective fielder after age 30 and was banished strictly to corner outfield spots for the last four years of his career. However, it wasn't his fault that he made it look easy, and as a bigger than average center fielder who started his career at just 19 years old, his body simply broke down in his 30's. Jones was truly one of the great ones in his day.
When it came to hitting, Jones was no slouch. With power uncharacteristic of a center fielder, he maintained a very productive bat for an extended period. From age 21 through 29 his average season included a .270/.347/.513 slash line, a 118 OPS+, 35 home runs, 104 RBI's, and 99 runs scored. This included a major league-leading 51 home runs in 2005. For his career he hit over 400 home runs and both scored and drove in over 1,200 runs. That puts him in rare company among center fielders all-time.
For the last five years of his career, Jones was nothing more than a power bat off the bench. This included a successful season as a reserve for the Yankees in 2011 where he put up an OPS+ of 126. Still, it was a far cry from the player he had been, and five years is a long time for writers to see a once great player deteriorate into a lesser one. After a dismal 2012 season with the Yankees he would never play in the major leagues again.
Thanks to the perceived laziness and long, slow, painful decline to end his career - a 2012 domestic violence incident couldn't have helped things either - Jones got very little support in his first two years on the Hall of Fame ballot. Yet since then a less crowded ballot seems to have significantly helped him in the polls. He secured nearly 20% of the vote in 2019 after a previous high of 7.5% and improved to over 40% in 2022. In 2023 he made a quantum leap to 58.1% of the vote and climbed up to 66.2% last year. On public ballots this year (about 35% of voters have gone public so far), Jones has been named on over 83% of the ballots. He's got a real chance to gain election this year, but even if he doesn't it's a virtual lock that he would make it in his last year of eligibility in 2027.
Edwin Encarnacion - First Baseman - JAWS: 31.2, HoF JAWS: 53.5
Edwin Encarnacion could always hit, but for the first seven seasons of his career major league managers made the mistake of calling him a third baseman. It was a square peg-round hole situation. He was simply overmatched at the hot corner and never was effective there despite the chances he got. A 2009 trade from the Reds to the Blue Jays - in which he was swapped for Hall of Famer Scott Rolen - saw him improve marginally at third base, but it was clear that he had no future at the position. In those first seven seasons up to 2011 he was a slightly better than average hitter, but his cement glove brought his value down to the point that he averaged less than one WAR per year.
In 2012, the Blue Jays finally saw the light and started playing Encarnacion exclusively at first base or designated hitter. While he was no Don Mattingly at first base, it was clear that removing the pressure of fighting a losing battle at third base everyday had a huge positive impact on Encarnacion's ability to swat. At age 29, he had a career-altering season at the plate. His home run power and ability to draw walks improved significantly and he finished the year with 42 home runs, a 153 OPS+, 5.0 WAR, and some consideration for the AL MVP award.
That was the first of a five year run for Encarnacion in Toronto where they made a dramatic turnaround from bottom feeders to title contenders thanks in large part to his lethal bat. From 2012 to 2016 his average season included 39 home runs, 110 RBI's, a 146 OPS+, more than 4.0 WAR, and a reputation as one of the best hitters in baseball. Along the way he was named to three All-Star teams and hit a dramatic walk-off home run in the 2016 Wild Card game to advance the Blue Jays to the Division Series where he remained red hot in a sweep of the Rangers.
After the 2016 season Encarnacion began the nomadic portion of his career. He remained an effective, powerful hitter in stints with Cleveland, Seattle, and New York over the next few years, but things came to a screeching halt during the COVID year in 2020 when he signed with the White Sox. At 37 years old, his bat fizzled out and that was it for Encarnacion as a major leaguer.
Considering that he wasn't used appropriately in the major leagues until he was seven seasons deep and nearly thirty years old, Encarnacion put together a fine career that should be celebrated. He hit over 400 home runs and probably would have swatted a bunch more had he moved off third base years earlier than he did. However, given his defensive limitations and late arrival to stardom, he was simply not good enough for long enough to gain any real support for the Hall of Fame. Thus far on public ballots, he has two votes to his name. He will likley not get more than another vote or two and this will be it for his run on the BBWAA ballot. Still, for a few years there in the 2010's, Edwin Encarnacion was one of the hitters that pitchers feared the most in Major League Baseball.
Bobby Abreu - Right Fielder, JAWS: 50.9, HoF JAWS: 56.0
For about a decade, Bobby Abreu was a metronome of baseball excellence. Every year he would hit .300 with 20 or 30 home runs, steal 20 or 30 bases, smack 40 doubles, score 100 runs, drive in 100 runs, and walk 100 times. Early in his career he was also a terrific fielder. Under normal circumstances this would make for a compelling Hall of Fame case.
However, Abreu was and still is rarely recognized as the great player he was during his career. This is almost solely attributable to his reserved nature that kept his demeanor low key no matter the situation on the baseball diamond. Fans and media members mistook his stoicism as a lack of passion or enthusiasm for baseball.
Truth is, nobody could be that productive for that long as a major leaguer while lacking passion for the game. From day one, Abreu took a sober, patient approach to hitting that made him an on-base machine but lacked the aggression that many around baseball crave. Productive as he was, he couldn't win over fans, especially in a city with a rabid fanbase like Philadelphia where he spent most of his career. This despite his heavy involvement in the local community, as evidenced by his Roberto Clemente Award in 2004.
It didn't help that the Phillies were a middling team that never made the playoffs during Abreu's tenure there. A 2006 trade to the Yankees meant that he would get to play meaningful October baseball. Although the Yankees lost the two playoff series that Abreu appeared in for New York, he hit well in both of them with an even .300 batting average. Despite his reputation, he could perform in high pressure situations.
As a member of the Yankees Abreu's home run and walk totals dipped a bit even as a lefty in Yankee Stadium, but he still remained a quality bat in the middle of the lineup. After signing as a free agent with the Angels in 2009, his production steadily tapered off until he retired at 40 years old.
Based on merit alone, Abreu's career achievements should warrant serious consideration for Cooperstown. Unsurprisingly, the BBWAA voters have disagreed as he garnered less than 10% of the vote in each of his first three years on the ballot. His situation improved a bit in the 2023 vote where he was chosen by a little over 15% of voters but his share of the vote hasn't even hit 20% in the two voting cycles since. Based on known ballots thus far, he is approaching 40% of the vote, which is good news. However, with just four years of eligibility left, it's seeming likely that he'll never get serious consideration from the Baseball Hall of Fame electorate. And that's a shame.
All numbers used in this article were obtained from Baseball Reference.
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