When Hall of Fame closer Billy Wagner talks about a hitter who gave him fits, you listen. This is a guy who carved out a dominant career blowing fastballs past some of the best to ever step into a batter’s box. But there was one name Wagner couldn’t quite solve, and it belongs to a player who’s become synonymous with Braves excellence: Andruw Jones.
In a recent conversation with a fellow Hall of Fame inductee, Wagner opened up about the battles he had with Jones - and made it clear that those matchups were anything but routine. According to Wagner, no hitter stepped in against him more often than Jones, and that consistency gave the longtime Braves center fielder plenty of opportunities to make life difficult for one of the most electric arms of his generation.
Billy Wagner faced Andruw Jones more than anyone else in his career and was teammates with Carlos Beltrán
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“I struggled with Andruw a lot,” Wagner admitted. “Andruw was just-he was so athletic that you really didn’t know how to pitch him. I didn’t have a good formula.”
That’s not something you hear every day from a closer who made a career out of making hitters look lost. But Jones wasn’t your average hitter.
He brought a rare blend of power, plate discipline, and adaptability that made him a nightmare to game-plan against. Wagner emphasized that unpredictability - the way Jones could adjust in the middle of an at-bat - as a key reason why he was so tough to contain.
“Andruw was tough. He could hit to all fields. I didn’t feel like Andruw ever really had bad at-bats,” Wagner said.
That kind of consistency is what helped build Jones’ Hall of Fame case. He didn’t just swing hard and hope for the best.
He forced pitchers to be perfect - and punished them when they weren’t. His ability to stay within himself, to avoid chasing, and to make pitchers work for every out made him a true outlier, even among the elite.
For Wagner to openly acknowledge that he never cracked the code on Jones says a lot. This is a guy who racked up strikeouts at a historic rate, who thrived in pressure-packed innings and made a living closing the door on big-league hitters. And yet, when it came to Jones, even Wagner had to tip his cap.
It’s a reminder of just how special Andruw Jones was - not just as a defender in center field, where he redefined the position, but as a complete player who earned the respect of the game’s fiercest competitors. Baseball, at its core, is a sport of matchups. And sometimes, even the best arms run into hitters they just can’t figure out.
For Wagner, that hitter was Andruw Jones. And that, in itself, is a tribute to how great Jones truly was.