JAWS and the 2025 Hall of Fame Ballot: Adam Jones

The following article is part of Jay Jaffe’s ongoing look at the candidates on the BBWAA 2025 Hall of Fame ballot. For a detailed introduction to this year’s ballot, and other candidates in the series, use the tool above; an introduction to JAWS can be found here. For a tentative schedule, see here. All WAR figures refer to the Baseball Reference version unless otherwise indicated.

Adam Jones was Mr. Baltimore. Though he was born in San Diego and began his major league career in Seattle, Jones took to Baltimore upon being traded to the Orioles in 2008. On the field, he set an example for younger teammates during lean years, and his combination of power, speed, and graceful defense eventually helped the team end an epic streak of futility. He served as a starter on the Orioles’ first three playoff teams in this millennium, winning four Gold Gloves and making five All-Star teams. Off the field, Jones invested in the city, annually donating a significant chunk of his salary to the local Boys & Girls Club and other charitable endeavors. He emerged as a civic icon, a Black athlete who could relate to the hardships experienced by the city’s Black population, and one who wasn’t afraid to speak out regarding the injustices he saw both locally and nationally.

Jones’ national prominence reached its zenith in 2017 when he made a memorable, iconic catch to rob Manny Machado of a home run while playing center field during the World Baseball Classic — a key moment in helping Team USA win the tournament for the only time thus far.

“When I first got here [2010], he was our best player, but he also played the game the right way,” manager Buck Showalter told ESPN’s Tim Kurkjian in 2015. “His words come with a lot of weight. He walks the walk. No one plays harder than Adam Jones. Nine innings, 90 feet, no one. That’s not something that everyone can do in the big leagues, play hard every play, post up every day… He will tell the truth, and he will say it to your face. He loves to win, doesn’t like to lose.”

…

Adam LaMarque Jones was born on August 1, 1985 in San Diego, California, the youngest of five children raised by his mother Andrea Brown Bradley and stepfather Kenneth Bradley. Jones grew up in a southeast San Diego neighborhood rife with gangs, drugs, and violence. He sold candy door to door to earn money to buy lunch at school. As a child, he was interested in football and basketball, and it wasn’t until his stepfather took him to a Padres game when he was 12 that he took an interest in the baseball or picked up a bat.

Jones turned out to be a quick study when it came to baseball. He became a Padres fan, idolized Tony Gwynn, and made friends who helped provide some of the stability and material goods he needed to stay out of trouble and pursue travel baseball. The family of Jett Ruiz, his team’s catcher, took Jones into their Lakeside home for weekends during travel ball season, buying him a Mizuno glove and other gear. Future major leaguer Quintin Berry became his closest friend; as Berry would later note, both he and Jones showed enough promise on the diamond that local gangs elected to give them a wide berth.

At Samuel Morse High School, Jones played basketball and football as well as baseball. Not lacking for self confidence, he told Morse’s coach Matt Cleek when he was a sophomore, “I’m gonna be your no. 1 pitcher… and your best player.” He starred as a pitcher and shortstop, able to throw 96 mph with his fastball; he also threw “breaking balls that sank all over the place,” Ruiz told the Baltimore Sun’s Mike Klingaman in 2012, and experimented with switch-hitting. After his junior year he considered transferring to Mission Bay High School, where he would have paired with 2004 top pick Matt Bush on the middle infield, but Jones balked when he was told that he would have to shift to second base instead of Bush. As a senior, he hit .406, posted a 2.71 ERA, and helped Morse to the 2003 California State semifinals.

Ahead of the 2003 draft, some teams were interested in Jones the pitcher, others in Jones the shortstop. “Jones has limited skills beyond raw stuff, and little feel for pitching,” wrote Baseball America in a pre-draft report. “He prefers to be an everyday player and is athletic [enough] to play almost any position on the field. He is a potential five-tool talent, though his bat is a bit suspect.” In a judgment that did not age well, the publication added, “Makeup is also an issue with Jones, who has had a tough upbringing.” The report additionally compared him to Bush: “[S]couts say Jones is bigger, faster and has a better arm, though Bush is more refined.”

As the head coach at San Diego State, Gwynn recruited Jones, who signed a letter of intent to the school, but when the Mariners drafted him as a supplemental first-round pick, 37th overall, he chose to sign for a $925,000 bonus. He began his professional career playing shortstop for the Mariners’ Arizona Complex League affiliate, hitting .284/.368/.349 in 30 games and earning a late-season promotion to Low-A Everett. “We’re still not sure what we’ve got,” Arizona manager Scott Steinmann told Baseball America, “but he prefers to play in the field. It’s possible we won’t make a final determination on whether he’s a pitcher or shortstop until next year. He’s got a lot of upside either way.”

Jones remained on the position player path, spending 2004 at A-level Wisconsin and splitting ’05 between High-A Inland Empire and Double-A San Antonio, hitting a combined .297/.370/.479 with 15 homers and 13 steals. He mainly played shortstop in both seasons, but after a brief experiment in center field at San Antonio, the Mariners moved him to the middle pasture for the 2005 Arizona Fall League, believing that incumbent shortstop Yuniesky Betancourt (then just 23) would become a star. Baseball America ranked Jones 64th on its 2006 Top 100 Prospects list, and compared him to former Mariners center fielder Mike Cameron: “Both are premium athletes with plus speed, solid power and strong arms.”

After a strong half-season at Triple-A Tacoma, the 20-year-old Jones was called up by the Mariners shortly after incumbent center fielder Jeremy Reed broke his thumb, an injury that turned out to be season-ending. Jones debuted on July 14, 2006, going 0-for-3 with a walk against the Blue Jays. He went 0-for-12 before collecting his first hit on July 18, a single off the Orioles’ Sidney Ponson; on August 10, he hit his first homer, off the Rangers’ Adam Eaton. Largely overmatched, he was sent back to Tacoma in late August, and limited to late-inning duty when the Mariners recalled him in September. In all, he hit just .216/.237/.311 (42 OPS+) with a 28.9% strikeout rate in 74 plate appearances, though he did play center field well.

Jones climbed to 28th in BA’s Top 100. The publication envisioned him as a potential Gold Glove winner, lauding his work ethic and ability to adjust, but expressed concern about his plate discipline and strikeout issues. He spent the first four months of the 2007 season at Tacoma, hitting .314/.382/.586 with 25 homers and eight steals, then was recalled in early August. With Ichiro Suzuki shifting over from right field to play regularly in center, Jones was mainly used in left and off the bench; taking just 71 PA in 41 games, he hit just .246/.300/.400 (86 OPS+), highlighted by a game-tying pinch-homer off the A’s Alan Embree on September 12.

The 2007 Mariners won 88 games, their best showing in four years. Believing they were one frontline pitcher away from returning to the playoffs for the first time since 2001, in February ’08 they traded Jones and four pitchers (Tony Butler, Kam Mickolio, George Sherrill, and Chris Tillman) to the Orioles for lefty Erik Bedard. With Sherrill and Tillman each making an All-Star team and Jones making five while Bedard totaled just 46 starts across two and a half seasons, the trade turned out to be one of the worst in Mariners history. Not that the Orioles were any good, as they had already strung together 10 straight sub-.500 seasons, including a 69-93 record in 2007. With the 22-year-old Jones replacing Corey Patterson and Tike Redman, the O’s were no better in 2008 (68-93), but the newcomer hit .270/.311/.400 (87 OPS+) with nine homers, 10 steals, and 6 DRS in center field, good for 2.0 WAR despite missing four weeks after fracturing his left foot with a foul ball.

Jones broke out in 2009, making his first All-Star team and winning his first Gold Glove on the strength of a .277/.335/.457 (105 OPS+) season with 19 homers and 10 steals, though his 2 DRS suggests he was less effective than he appeared — an issue that would resurface. He didn’t play after September 1 due to a left ankle sprain, but his 2.6 WAR in 119 games represented improvement. Healthy enough to play 300 games in 2010–11, he posted slight improvements in offense relative to the league but inconsistent defense. In 2011, the better of those two seasons, he hit .280/.319/.466 with 25 homers, 12 steals, -1 DRS and 3.3 WAR.

Showalter took over as manager for the fired Dave Tremblay and interim Juan Samuel late in the 2010 season, guiding the Orioles to a 34-23 record over the final two months and change. The Orioles couldn’t maintain that momentum in 2011, with another 69-93 campaign, their 14th straight below .500. Things changed in 2012. Thanks to a number of factors, including breakouts by Tillman and DH Chris Davis, the arrivals of 26-year-old lefty Wei-Yin Chen and the 19-year-old Machado — as well as a 29-9 record in one-run games — the Orioles earned a Wild Card berth with a 93-69 record. Jones led the team with 4.1 WAR while batting .287/.334/.505 (125 OPS+) with 32 homers and 16 steals, with all but the OBP representing career bests to that point. He made his second All-Star team and won his second Gold Glove despite a ghastly -13 DRS (and -6.0 UZR); notably, this was the last year before the SABR Defensive Index was introduced.

In May 2012, Jones parlayed his upgraded play into a six-year, $85.5 million extension with the Orioles for the ’13–18 seasons, the largest contract in team history to that point. He earmarked $75,000 of his salary annually for the local Boys & Girls Clubs, including $20,000 to college scholarships for needy students. “I fit here in this city. I fit here on this team. I fit in Camden Yards,” Jones said at the press conference to announce his extension. “I really don’t see myself wearing another white uniform that doesn’t have ‘Orioles’ across the chest.”

“The dude made the cash register ring every time he hit a home run, didn’t he?” said Dan Duquette, Baltimore’s executive vice president of baseball operations.

Jones wasn’t much help in the Orioles’ first postseason since 1997, going 2-for-26 in the Wild Card Game against the Rangers and the Division Series against the Yankees. He and the Orioles fell short of returning after an 85-win campaign in 2013, but for Jones it was arguably his best season, as he set new career highs in WAR (4.8), home runs (33), and RBI (108) while hitting .285/.318/.493 (118 OPS+) and adding 14 steals as well. His defense rebounded to -1 run; again he won a Gold Glove, and he began a string of three straight All-Star Game starts.

Jones followed up with another 4.8-WAR season in 2014, with 29 homers and a 115 OPS+, that despite walking just 19 times while striking out 133 times. This time, the Orioles won 96 games and their first AL East flag since 1997. Though he went just 2-for-11, Jones scored four runs in three games as the Orioles swept the Tigers in the Division Series. He hit a two-run homer off Yordano Ventura in Game 2 of the ALCS, but the Orioles were swept by the Royals.

After playing 150 or more games in each of the previous four seasons, Jones was limited to 137 in 2015 by various aches and pains caused by sacrificing his body. He missed time in June due to right shoulder soreness stemming from an attempt to make a diving catch on June 15 against the Phillies, and concussion-like symptoms after crashing into a wall in Texas on August 27. He hit .269/.308/.474 (110 OPS+) with 27 homers and 3.5 WAR; though his 5 DRS was his best showing in that category since 2008, his string of three straight Gold Gloves ended — as well it should have given the off-the-charts 38 DRS of Kevin Kiermaier.

By 2015, Jones had already become a Baltimore institution, but his voice took on increased resonance as he publicly grappled with the civic unrest in the wake of the death of Freddie Gray, a 25-year-old Black man who had been arrested for possession of a knife on April 12, 2015 and who sustained a fatal spinal cord injury while in police custody a week later, resulting in criminal charges against six officers. Ongoing protests against the Baltimore Police Department turned violent, and fire and escalating civil disorder forced the postponement of an Orioles-White Sox game, which was subsequently rescheduled to be played in an empty Camden Yards. Before the game, Jones related his own experiences growing up to those experienced by the city’s Black youth, and expressed empathy for them:

“There’s been a lot of good protesting, there have been a lot of people standing up for the rights that they have… The youth are hurting… It can look like no one’s fighting for you but there are people like myself. I say to the youth, your frustration is warranted. It’s understandable, understood. The actions I don’t think are acceptable, but if you come from where they come from, you understand… This is their cry… They need hugs. They need love. They need support.

“I feel the pain of these kids. Let’s remember I grew up on similar tracks as them… It’s just not easy seeing a community [where] you are trying to affect change in, seeing these kind of things, but it’s understandable because these kids are hurt. And these kids have seen the pain in their parents’ eyes, the pain in their grandparents’ eyes over decades, and this is their way of speaking on behalf of their parents and behalf of their grandparents and people who have been hurt.”

Jones remained visible and outspoken. He continued to speak out on matters of race and sports, expressing support for Colin Kaepernick and other NFL players kneeling during the national anthem in 2016 as a protest against racial inequality. “I’ve seen Kaepernick called the N-word,” Jones told USA Today’s Bob Nightengale, “just because he’s being sensitive to what has happened to African Americans in this country. It’s crazy how when people of color speak up, we’re always ridiculed. But when people that are not of color speak up, it’s their right.”

Explaining why baseball players were not protesting to the degree that football players were, Jones was pointedly critical of the industry, telling Nightengale:

“We already have two strikes against us already… so you might as well not kick yourself out of the game. In football, you can’t kick them out. You need those players. In baseball, they don’t need us.

“Baseball is a white man’s sport.”

Nightengale noted that just 8% of baseball players on Opening Day rosters were African Americans, compared to 68% of players in the NFL and 74% in the NBA.

Whether it was connected to his outspokenness or simply a particularly egregious example of bad fan behavior, on May 1, 2017, Jones became the target of abuse at Fenway Park. “A disrespectful fan threw a bag of peanuts at me,” Jones told USA Today, “I was called the N-word a handful of times tonight. Thanks. Pretty awesome.” Red Sox officials issued an apology to Jones and confirmed the ejection of the fan and somewhere around 30 others in attendance. Massachusetts governor Charlie Baker and Boston mayor Marty Walsh both condemned the fans’ behavior as well.

As Jones later explained to ESPN’s Jerry Crasnick:

“These are things that athletes, particularly of my color, face sometimes throughout their careers,” Jones said. “They’re presented with the choice to either let something go or to challenge it and speak up on it. I chose the route to challenge it and speak up on it. But with that, I want to educate myself on both sides. I don’t want to just speak brashly on something I don’t know anything about, which a lot of people do through the outlets that we have.

On the field, though Jones remained a power threat after 2015, with 29 homers in ’16 and 26 in ’17, his defense went into a steep decline — to -7 DRS in the former year, -13 in the latter — and he totaled just 4.3 WAR for the two seasons. The Orioles won 89 games and claimed a Wild Card spot in 2016; Jones went 1-for-5 against the Blue Jays, but the Orioles lost on Edwin Encarnación’s three-run homer off Ubaldo Jiménez as Zach Britton looked on.

Despite Jones’ increasingly subpar defensive metrics, he made what might be the most famous defensive play in World Baseball Classic history in 2017. In a game against the Dominican Republic that would determine which of the two teams advanced from Pool F to the championship round, Team USA — which had lost to the Dominican team 7-5 in the first round — led 4-2 going into the bottom of the seventh inning at Petco Park. Ahead in the count 2-1, Machado barreled an elevated Tyler Clippard fastball to center field. The 106-mph drive looked gone off the bat, but Jones ranged 100 feet to his left and timed his leap perfectly, snagging the ball a few feet above the right center field fence to rob his Orioles teammate of a sure home run. Machado doffed his helmet to salute the brilliant play, and Jones returned the gesture, capping an iconic and serendipitous moment for the San Diego native. Team USA went on to win the game 6-3, and, with victories over Japan in the semifinals and Puerto Rico in the finals, captured its only tournament championship to date.

In contrast to the fortunes of Team USA, the Orioles went south with increasing speed, losing 87 games in 2017 and then a jaw-dropping 115 in ’18. They traded Machado, Zack Britton, Kevin Gausman, Darren O’Day, Jonathan Schoop and others in July 2018 but not Jones, who had a no-trade clause but was a pending free agent. While he hit a respectable-for-the-position .281/.313/.419 (101 OPS+), hip issues cost him range, and he set a career worst with -19 DRS while finishing with just 0.6 WAR.

Instead of finding another big payday as hoped, Jones signed a one-year, $3 million-plus incentives deal with the Diamondbacks, and agreed to move to right field. Reportedly, the only other team that showed interest was the Marlins. The move at least allowed Jones to be closer to his mother and stepfather, who lived in the Phoenix area. Unfortunately, Jones continued his decline, hitting for an 87 OPS+ with -0.8 WAR. Still just 34 at the end of the 2019 season, he decided to continue his career in Japan, signing a two-year, $8 million contract with the Orix Buffaloes. He hit .258/.331/.417 with 12 homers in 87 games in 2020, then just .234/.337/.335 with four homers in 72 games the next year, though he capped his playing career with a pinch-homer in Game 5 of the 2021 Japan Series against the Yakult Swallows.

“After having played for almost two decades in MLB, being able to learn and study and compare how another country does baseball was fascinating,” wrote Jones for a career-capping piece in the Players Tribune. On September 15, 2023, Jones signed a one-day contract with the Orioles and officially retired. “My final time putting on a jersey will be here, and I’m just forever grateful for what Baltimore has taught me,” the 38-year-old Jones said. “I’m just glad that I’ll always be welcome in this city. The people here really appreciated the way I carried myself, played the game and gave back.”