History suggests Andruw Jones Hall-of-Fame patience will pay off

For the seventh year in a row, Andruw Jones came up short of being elected into the National Baseball Hall of Fame. Jones garnered 61.6 percent of the vote on his seventh hall-of-fame ballot. Outside of Billy Wagner, who was five votes short of election in year nine at 73.8 percent, Jones has the best odds of getting in of anyone returning on the ballot in 2024. History is also on his side in this.

Mark Bowman of MLB.com wrote about the likelihood of Jones getting inducted on any of the next three Hall of Fame ballots. He only needs to get to 75 percent of the vote on any of these three future ballots. With Adrian Beltre and Joe Mauer being first-ballot inductees for 2024, there may only be two next year. Ichiro Suzuki has a shot at being unanimous, while C.C. Sabathia should get a sizable vote.

That leaves us with three guys returning with a great to halfway-decent chance of getting in: Wagner, Jones and Carlos Beltran. Wagner feels like a lock with only five more votes needed heading into his last year on the ballot. Jones may have to wait another year, but by year nine, and definitely year 10 on the ballot, he should be getting in. After all, Braves Country knew we were watching a Hall of Famer.

Let's unpack Bowman's latest for MLB.com and expound on why Jones is surely getting in here soon.

Andruw Jones will be a Hall of Fame inductee at some point in the future

Bowman pointed out two recent inductees who had to wait their turn to get in: Todd Helton this year and Scott Rolen last year. I don't have a vote, but I would have voted for Helton and Rolen on previous ballots prior to their inductions in 2023 and 2024, respectively. Rolen was a wizard defensively at third base for years, while Helton remains the face of the Colorado Rockies franchise.

Jones' defense and offensive firepower is comparable to what Rolen's was at the hot corner for years in St. Louis and Philadelphia before that. His 10-year run in Atlanta from 1996 to 2005 was arguably better than any five-year stretch we saw out of Helton during his entire career in Denver. Still, I am also thankful I do not have a vote because the fallout of the steroid era would have perplexed me.

From a numbers perspective, Rolen was at 63.2 percent in what was his penultimate ballot in 2022. He was inducted with a 76.3 mark last January. Helton had been at 52 percent in 2022, but jumped up all the way to 72.2 percent in 2023 before getting past the 75-percent threshold at 79.7 percent on Monday evening. Basically, Jones has three more ballots to acquire 13.4 more percent of the vote.

With Braves Country fully behind him, I venture to guess he will be part of the 2025 or 2026 class.