A Look at Chipper Jones (HOF) Career by the Numbers

Chipper Jones is mulling over retirement at seasons end. So now is a good time to look at the stats Chipper Jones has accumulated over his career. And we can take a look at how they stack up all-time, as well as how close he is to catching other notable hall-of-famers:

-.305 BA as LHB, .308 BA as RHB, .306 combined (#2 all-time among switch hitters, Frankie Frisch #1 @ .316)

-1,387 Base On Balls (28th all-time, 19 away from Aaron and #25)

-.942 OBP+SLUG (29th all-time)

-160 IBB (34th all-time, 12 away from Winfield and #25)

-1798 runs created (36th all-time, 88 away from Honus Wagner and #25)

-77.90 WAR Pos. Player* (39th all-time, 6.0 away from George Brett and #30)

-430 HR (39th all-time, 22 away from Yastrzemski and #33 all-time)

-.537 SLUG% (40th all-time)

-.406 OBP (45th all-time)

-952 Extra Base Hits (45th all-time, 11 away from Tony Perez and #40)

-1474 RBI (53rd all-time, 38 away from Mantle and #50)

-4301 Total Bases (54 all-time, 51 away from Matthews and #49)

-87 Sac. Flies (61st all-time, 5 away from Bonds and #48)

-485 Doubles (64th all-time, 17 away from Goose Goslin and #49)

-1485 Runs Scored (72rd all-time, 47 away from #55 Frankie Frisch)

Nearly top 100 but just outside: -104th in hits (9 away from top 100)

Chipper is top 100 in so many categories that I think there is little quesion that he will be a hall-of-famer when he retires. He has amassed these numbers all with the same team, the Atlanta Braves, which is rare this day in age. A friend on Sportingnews.com had this to say about Chipper: "It's Chipper the man, not his numbers, that really deserves celebration." I couldn't have said it better myself, Chipper is a hall-of-famer statistically and he has always been a hall-of-fame man.

*"(WAR) Wins Above Replacement is a statistic that attempts to measure the "total value" of a player over a given season.

WAR calculates the total number of wins that any player adds to his team over the course of a season by comparing the player's performance with that of a fictitious replacement. A "replacement player" is assumed to be an average Triple-A callup who might appear in the majors only as replacement for an injured player, and whose hitting/fielding or pitching skills are far below league average. According to Baseball Prospectus, a team consisting entirely of replacement-level players would likely be historically bad, winning only 20-25 games over a full 162-game season.

Most regular position players will accumulate 3-5 WAR over a season. A legitimate All-Star-caliber player may have over 7 WAR. Over 10 WAR is a strong MVP candidate, while over 15 WAR is a "one-for-the-ages" season. On the flip side, a player with -1 WARP or less is probably in danger of disappearing from baseball."

Stats and WAR explanation from: http://www.baseball-reference.com/leaders/