Jared Jones Hits His First Roadblock

The young hurler's metrics have suffered over his past 5 starts

As always, it’s difficult to write in-depth pieces during the season. So, this post will be shorter than I’d like it to be, but with Jones starting on Saturday against the Rays, I wanted to get some thoughts out there about how I’m valuing him moving forward.

Strider 2.0

Last year, I wrote about how and why I use Stuff+ in specific situations for fantasy baseball analysis. Early in 2024, Jared Jones looked like another home run outcome for the evaluation process. In fact, he looked extremely similar to Spencer Strider.

Jones began the year on fire with his hellacious fastball-slider combination overpowering hitters in the strike zone. He was a good pitching prospect, but not many saw this coming, and it took him until late in spring training to win the Pirates’ fifth starter job.

“Stuff” matters because when you reach a certain level of dominance with a pitch, the remainder of the components of pitching matter a little less. The ultimate goal is a Zack Wheeler type — great pitches with great game planning, command, and experience. We can’t expect rookies to be at that execution level, though, so we want to lean more into Stuff+ when they burst onto the scene.

Can this rookie get MLB hitters out while developing the finer points of pitching?

Even Strider was still learning entering 2024, and he planned to bring a new pitch with him into the year.

For Jones, he was initially gauging how he stacked up against big-league hitters. His early plan seemed to focus on getting his best pitches in the strike zone. He sometimes misses in the zone, attempting to throw a high fastball until it drifts back to the heart of the plate. This explains his 1.37 HR/9 rate on the year (tied for the 7th-worst among qualified starters).

As the Rates and Barrels crew discussed earlier this year, Jones will sometimes even “miss” for a called strike 3, but it wasn’t where he was aiming.

So, despite a blistering start to his MLB career, Jones needed to work on command and rounding out the rest of his pitch mix. Things weren’t perfect, but through May 16th, he had a 2.89 ERA while ranking 7th among starters in strikeouts and WHIP, 4th in K-BB%, 1st in Stuff+, and 1st in swinging strike rate (by a lot).

Fatigue? Adjustments?

Jones hasn’t been the same since his brilliant early-season run. After not allowing more than two walks in a single start through May 16th, Jones has allowed 3+ free passes in four of his past five outings.

Overall, the splits between his first nine starts and five most recent are significant:

Looking into the noticeable drop in Stuff+ can help us better understand why the surface-level numbers are taking a hit.

We’ll start with velocity. Aside from a spike in his start against the Dodgers (which he was clearly amped for), he isn’t consistently maintaining his early-April velo.

Here are the exact changes in Jones’ Stuff+ by pitch through May 16th and afterward:

• Fastball 142 —> 116

• Slider 130 —> 121

• Curve 101 —> 97

• Changeup 132 —> 112

While Jones still has the 4th-highest average fastball velocity among starting pitchers, that isn’t the only trait that made his heater special. Jones’ elite “ride” from a low arm slot strengthened the Strider comparison. Well….

And from Baseball Savant:

Since Jones throws this pitch 50% of the time, any decrease in quality hurts not only his fastball but also the rest of his arsenal.

What Does It All Mean?

Jones starts for the Pirates on Saturday against the Rays. Projections like the matchup fine, and as of this writing, Tampa Bay has been a bottom-third offense over the past two weeks. I sat Jones in a weekly league where I’m lucky to have good pitching depth, but I plan to start him in my two daily lineup leagues where I have him and need the volume this week.

This matchup is a bit of a litmus test for Jones. When can we confidently start him if we can’t feel good about him at home against the Rays? The upcoming schedule after Saturday is a mixed bag:

• at Braves

• vs. Cardinals

• vs. Mets

• at White Sox

I don’t think Jones’ decreased stuff is a sign that he’s about to break, although you never know with pitchers these days.

I think this is a young arm who wanted to make a statement coming out of the gate, but it’s very hard to maintain that level of high-intensity effort start after start, especially when it’s your first year pitching in the majors.

The declining velo (and increased changeup usage) feel almost intentional, as if Jones understands he’ll need more answers as the league sees him multiple times (since his goal is to get through a full season). The increased velocity during the Dodgers start is a positive sign that Jones still has it in him.

However, if he can’t regularly be the early-April version of himself, then we need to adjust our expectations and valuation, just as we adjusted his ceiling after witnessing the start of his big league career.

The good news is Jones still possesses above-average “stuff” over his past five outings. He’s dropping from the No. 1 spot in Stuff+ rankings, so he isn’t suddenly awful from a pitch shape perspective. The bad news is his recent results have been awful, led by a 5.54 ERA and a 1.58 WHIP over five starts.

The ideal rest-of-season projection for Jones probably combines his two splits, and he should therefore be judged on the totality of what he has done to date. Perhaps this was part of the plan to get him through the year, and a “sell” recommendation would look silly in the coming months.

Thus, treat this post as a warning sign. Don’t make any rash decisions with Jones, but understand the direction his metrics are heading in of late. If nothing else, it’s something to keep an eye on.

Long-term, I’m wavering even less. Summer has begun, so it’s time to start locking into our leagues for a championship push. Jones’ value won’t diminish too much by the offseason, health willing, so if anything, he’s a “buy” in dynasty formats.

His recent results and the Stuff+ dropoff have my attention in redraft leagues. In dynasty and the card market, however, we’re holding strong.