Andruw Jones Signs with Chicago White Sox

The White Sox Decided to Take the Risk and Offered Andruw Jones a One-Year Contract

Andruw Jones singed with the Chicago White Sox on Wednesday. In the deal, Andruw Jones will make $500,000 in a one-year contract with the White Sox. There are of course performance bonuses built into the contract, but this is one of the biggest pay-cuts that anyone has ever taken in Major League Baseball. Andruw Jones is coming off of a season where he made about $18 million dollars, and where he didn't earn any of it for the team that was paying him. Now the former all-star has really fallen from grace in the game of baseball, and it looks like he was willing to take the pay cut to sign on with a new team.

Andruw Jones still isn't old by any means at 32-years of age, and he could still have some good years left in him if he can go back to what he once was. His career has been really solid, but the problem is that over the past two seasons he has fallen a long ways from his status of receiving MVP votes. Jones is a 10-time Gold Glove center fielder that ranks among the best to patrol the outfields of the National League, and he parlayed that into a contract with the Los Angeles Dodgers that was slated to pay him $36 million over two years in 2008. He tanked completely, so badly that the Dodgers ended up releasing him before the contract was even over.

Last season Andruw Jones put up a .214 average and 17 home runs for the Texas Rangers over 82 games. Not at all as good as he once was, it seemed that Jones had really lost a lot in his game. Some might say that he finally got his "pay day" and stopped putting in the work, and other rumors have claimed that he is older than he claims. He can still hit the long-ball every now and then though, and could turn out to be a nice bench player for the White Sox that they could use to spell the starters every now and then. The risk is minimal at a $500,000 contract, and that appears to be why the White Sox were willing to sign the veteran for another year.