Dodgers offload multiple Gold Glove winner Jones

By Mark Lamport-Stokes

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Thirteen months after signing free-agent center-fielder Andruw Jones on a two-year, $36-million deal, the Los Angeles Dodgers released the 10-times Gold Glove winner on Thursday.

Jones had been lured to add power to the Los Angeles line-up but he arrived at the club overweight and hit only .158 with three home runs in 75 games last season after struggling with assorted injuries.

"Obviously this is a disappointing day for both us and Andruw," Dodgers general manager Ned Colletti said in a statement.

"We all had high hopes for him when he signed last year, given his track record and everything that we had seen from him in the past and heard about him.

"I know that Andruw is also very disappointed in the way things turned out and the best thing to do at this point is to turn the page and we wish him well."

Jones, 31, was given his release in exchange for deferring over the next six years around $16 million of the remaining $21.1 million the Dodgers owe on his two-year deal.

A five-time All Star with the Atlanta Braves, Jones is a native of Curacao in the Dutch Antilles who broke through with the Braves as a 19-year-old in 1996.

He has a career batting average of .259 with 371 home runs, 1,131 RBIs.

Jones made a splash in his first season as the youngest player in the majors when he became the first National League player to hit home runs in his first two World Series at-bats in the 1996 Fall Classic against the New York Yankees.

(Editing by Alastair Himmer)