Chipper Jones was the most excited I ever saw Bill James be on a young player. He sure did have a successful career. I think Bill wanted to say more about Chipper when he was a prospect, but Bill said you should never project too much for prospects, so he tended to be conservative about his predictions for them.
Chipper had a little bit of an interesting career for a hall of famer. He didn’t have 3,000 hits or 500 home runs. He made a good run at both. He won one batting title, one on base title and one OPS title. So, he didn’t have a lot of black ink, meaning he didn’t lead in too many categories. Chipper won the MVP in 1999. Jeff Bagwell the runner-up had a higher WAR, but I would have voted for Chipper. Chipper had a reputation as a below average fielder. However, his defensive WAR Stats show him as very close to average at 3rd base and the outfield.
Chipper was one of those players who did nothing outstanding but did a lot of stuff close to outstanding and didn’t do anything badly. He was helped by the Sabermetrics stats which combined the overall player to show how good he was.
