Bring back my boy AJ

After reading the fanpost, "Andruw Jones wants his job back," I realized that I had almost forgotten about my favorite former Braves player. AJ was my childhood favorite due to his incredible defensive talent, his ability to slug 35 home runs a year, and he was always smiling about something (most likely food) every single at-bat.

An idea that was brought up (and quickly shot down) in the comments section was "wait a second, could we really get Andruw back? Is he worth anything anymore?" I began entertaining the idea of having AJ back in the lineup if he were his old self, and to be honest, I liked the idea of seeing him back. I decided to do a little research to see if Jones's career really is completely done, or if maybe he could bounce back - in an Atlanta Braves uniform.

Last year with the Rangers, in 281 AB's, Andruw's line looked like this: .214/.323/.459 giving him a .782 OPS, with 17 homers and 43 RBI's. Now, that seems pretty bad.

Except for that home run total. In fact, for his number of AB's, that home run total is very good. His HR/AB ratio was 1/16.5 - that is very good. How many home runs does that translate to over the course of a whole season? From 1998-2007, he averaged 590.3 AB's a season. If you put Andruw's 2009 HR/AB ratio over the course of an entire season (590.3 AB's), he would hit a rounded total of 36 home runs. Hmmm...that looks just like his old home run totals.

Another thing stood out to me was that Andruw's OBP was over .100 points higher than his BA. The number of walks AJ took last season was surprising to me - 45! This is a huge improvement for Andruw, showing that he has more plate discipline. Over the course of an entire season, AJ would have racked up approx. 95 walks in '09 - which is, believe it or not, better than Chipper's season average of about 90 BB per season.

When I took a look at Andruw's 2009 monthly splits, I saw that he had a fantastic April, an okay May, a very bad June, a great July (.964 OPS, 8 homers in 67 AB's), and a bad August. However, in August, he only played in 14 games, and only had 48 AB's. AJ didn't see much playing time after mid-August, only seeing 38 AB's after August 17.

AJ received pretty consistent playing time before the All-Star break, and it resulted in 14 homers and an .870 OPS. But once he struggled in August, he was basically taken out of the lineup except for spot starts. I think that if AJ had consistent playing time, being the streaky hitter that he is, he could work through his streaks of hot and cold.

A lot of people may try to say AJ has lost it because of his strikeout total. Yes, his strikeout total was high in '09 - 72 K's, making an estimated season total 151 K's for AJ. However, strikeouts aren't necessarily a bad thing for sluggers. It's just an out. Two of the game's greatest sluggers, Ryan Howard and Adam Dunn, strike out even more than that every season - heck, Howard struck out 186 times last year, and 199 times in '07 and '08.

Another knock that AJ has on him is that he played in Texas last year, a hitter's park. While his home stats were better than his away stats, I'm not sure how much the park contributed to his numbers. He had 9 HR's at home and 8 on the road. Although the difference in OPS seems substantial - .858 OPS at home and a .705 mark on the road - that difference mainly comes from a difference of 6 more doubles and 7 more walks at home than on the road.

Another problem with AJ is that people think he has become too fat and too slow. I agree he should try Nutrisystem, but he still swiped 5 bags while only being caught once last year. Perhaps TP and the Braves could really work with him if we were to bring him back to keep him in shape.

If we did bring him back, I could picture Andruw Jones having a season that is good but not great, perhaps like the numbers he put up in 2001: .251/.312/.461 with 34 homers and 104 RBI's. If he played full time in 2010, I can see him putting up numbers like this: .235/.335/.465 with 35 homers and 100 RBI's, which is nothing to sneeze at! Just because his average may be low doesn't mean he couldn't be productive and valuable.

Does anyone else think it may be a good idea to bring back Andruw Jones in 2010? He would come cheap, probably around $500,000. Opening Day, I think we should start AJ in CF (only if his defense can be relied on), put McLouth in left and Diaz in right. IMO, Heyward will be up in June, giving AJ 2 months to prove himself. If AJ sucks terribly, we can get him out of there, put Heyward in right, and move McLouth back to center. However, if AJ bounces back, we could keep AJ in center, have McLouth in left, Heyward in right, and Diaz to make spot starts whenever needed. Is AJ worth the risk of having a hole in our lineup for 2 months?

Plus, if we sign AJ rather than an outfielder like Cameron, we save some money that we could spend on extending Laroche's stay, which IMO is the most important thing we need to do this offseason.

Now, I don't know about Andruw's defense. I saw that he was mainly a DH all year - he only played in the outfield 17 games last year. He didn't make any errors in OF, but has anyone seen him play? I have heard he is not very good anymore, but I'd like some confirmation. I still believe in AJ when it comes to taking good routes and getting great jumps on balls, but I don't know...

What does everyone think about reuniting the Jones brothers?