So, ninth-place finisher in the AL Comeback Player of the Year balloting Andruw Jones has quickly been reunited with Rangers teammate Omar Vizquel in Chicago (signing a one-year, $500,000 pact with potential performance bonuses amounting to an additional $1 million), and reading through the Baseball Think Factory thread on the subject, what should I stumble upon but this 2006 tidbit from SI.com rumor monger Jon Heyman:

The Braves are shopping Andruw Jones around, hoping to land young pitching in return for the eight-time Gold Glove center fielder. Atlanta asked the White Sox for right-hander Brandon McCarthy but were rejected. They are still in talks with the Red Sox for a package that may include left-hander Jon Lester, who is 5-1 with a 3.49 ERA during his rookie season.

So, if some configuration of that deal happens, neither McCarthy nor Jones likely ever land in Texas, John Danks likely remains a Ranger and, heck, maybe the Mark Teixeira trade never happens either. I am being more than a little facetious, of course; every single major league general manager could play this exact same game, wistfully scanning their old notes and wondering if a certain trade or signing that they failed to pull the trigger on might have propelled their ballclub to bigger and better things. Remember that purported Jose Cruz Jr.-for-David Wright deal that J.P. Ricciardi was said to have unconditionally vetoed? Yeah.

As for the signing itself, it's neither terrible not great ... it's just another run-of-the-mill low-base contract that may or may not ever come to fruition. Jones wasn't a total disaster in Texas (.348 park-adjusted wOBA) and might have had more utility if Ron Washington had opted to selectively utilize him more so than he actually did. As it stands, Jones served as a nice walk sponge and showcased some surprisingly renascent power, but was over-exposed by his manager, couldn't remotely hit for average and, defensively speaking, seemed to be a shadow of his former Gold Glove-winning self.

Something that's eminently difficult to comprehend: if you had run Jones through the Bill James-devised "Favorite Toy" three years ago, the resulting forecast would have given him a 49 percent chance to reach 600 home runs. Combined with his well-deserved reputation as one of this generation's greatest defensive players and lack of association with PEDs, he probably would have been a first-ballot Hall of Famer. Now? The door is still open, but the pile of .225/.320/.420 projections doesn't really portend well for his chances of a career renaissance.