Nolan Jones: Lucky or Good?

Why not both?

I’m trying to be better about not always dismissing efficiency as unrepeatable.

This is actually a lesson I’ve taken from fantasy football, where for most of the past 5 years I faded RBs such as Nick Chubb and Derrick Henry due to their outlier yards per carry and workloads. “It’ll regress”, I’d tell myself. But for many years it didn’t. It’s because they were talented.

I’m not sure what the exact comparison is for baseball, but I found myself thinking a lot about Blake Snell’s 2023 left on base rate during his run to winning another Cy Young award. It was the 9th-highest LOB% of all time.

Would I bet on him repeating that in 2024? Absolutely not, but in 2018 he actually had an even higher mark, giving him two of the nine highest single-season left on base rates of all time!

It’s a stat worthy of its own article, but today we’re writing about Nolan Jones’ .401 batting average on balls in play from 2023. Can he continue running a high BABIP in spacious Coors Field? Or was he just getting lucky last season?

Fantasy Stardom

Let’s start with the surface level production, because whether or not he can keep it up I think it’s important to get a base understanding of just how good Nolan Jones was in 2023.

He began the season in Triple-A, registering an incredible .356/.481/.711 triple slash line in part thanks to the favorable Pacific Coast League environment.

Jones debuted with the Rockies in late May and totaled 106 games, batting .297/.389/.542 with 20 homers and 20 stolen bases.

Just 19 players went 20/20 last year, and all of them had at least 500 plate appearances…except Jones, who finished with 424.

A nice power/speed combo is always interesting to fantasy managers, but to accomplish the feat in such a truncated amount of playing time speaks to the run he was on — and what it could mean for 2024.

Here’s another way to look at Jones’ success last season — his ranks among all hitters with at least 400 PAs:

By these metrics he was a top-20 hitter in the league, even when adjusting for Coors Field by using wRC+.

His performance feels like it came out of nowhere partly because the Guardians, a team perennially desperate for offensive production, sent Jones to the Rockies in a very minor deal after 2022. He was a 3-time, top-100 prospect, however, ranking as high as 36th overall at MLB Pipeline entering 2021.

Jones especially caught fire in the second half, which he partly attributes to being more aggressive early in the count. The 25-year-old has always toed the line of passivity versus selectiveness at the plate, so it’s reasonable to think this new approach could be big for him going forward.

Signs of Flukiness

On a recent episode of the Stacking Dingers Show, Matt asked a trivia question of who had the highest BABIP in the majors last season. My first guess was Nolan Jones, because I knew his was high, but it turns out he didn’t have enough plate appearances to qualify.

So after the show I looked at his BABIP and saw .401 and thought “Wow! That’s high!”

Then I ran a Stathead search for the highest BABIP seasons since World War II (min. 400 PAs):

Think about how long ago 1945 was. And how much baseball has been played since then. How the game has changed and evolved. How many statistical quirks there are every season.

And here’s 2023 Nolan Jones, with one of the 10 highest BABIP seasons since then!! That’s so wild to me.

My stance on BABIP is that it’s a noisy stat on a year-to-year basis that has a solid amount of luck baked into it. While someone like Ichiro consistently posted above-average marks, his yearly BABIPs still fluctuated. Meanwhile, there’s a reason Max Muncy ran such low BABIP in 2023 — he tried lofting everything to his pull side, and high fly balls don’t tend to fall in for hits.

On the extreme ends there’s often a reason why a player is a BABIP outlier, but there’s also many who over perform or under perform due to sheer variance.

Consider 2014 Danny Santana, who in the above screenshot is shown with a .405 BABIP during his rookie season. Did he maintain that? From 2015 through 2021 he had a .297 mark, so nope.

Another recent example is 2019 Yoan Moncada, who also went over .400. Since then? He’s at .322.

So I’m absolutely not here to tell you that Jones is such a transcendent talent that he’s going to repeat this year after year. He won’t. But could he still run higher BABIPs than league average?

The first issue is his 29.7% strikeout rate. It’s just hard to hit for a good average when striking out that much. The good news is his K% decreased as the year went on, particularly in September:

This may have stemmed from the aforementioned goal of swinging earlier in counts, which would be great! That being said, he had a .468 BABIP in September, which can’t be overlooked even if the overall decrease in K% is a big positive.

The other factor here is Jones’ home park. There’s a reason we’re always chasing after Rockies hitters in fantasy, and it’s because Coors Field has the highest BABIP among all ballparks since opening.

It’s also been a bit since the Rockies have had a position player worth getting overly excited about. Jones’ 135 wRC+ from last year is the highest by a Rockie since 2018. And the past few seasons have been particularly bleak. We’ve almost forgotten how fantasy-friendly it is to have a great Rockies hitter.

While Jones hit for a higher average at Coors, his BABIP was actually much higher during road games!

I think this is a negative for his prospects going forward, because while a .374 BABIP in Coors is high, it isn’t CRAZY. But a .434 mark on the road? I’m fascinated to see where that comes in at this year.

Lastly, I’ll just note that Jones over performed his expected stats last year. That shouldn’t come as a surprise due to everything we’ve already discussed here, but I know it’s another method people will use to analyze him. That’s kind of double counting the BABIP luck to me, especially if looking at xBA.

Bringing It All Together

Speaking of Jones’ Savant page, we should mention his elite 94th percentile barrel rate, easily the most important Statcast metric for hitters, and the best predictor of future home runs.

Another key for Jones’ outlook moving forward is that he doesn’t expand the zone too much. Among the 212 hitters with at least 400 PA last season his 28.7% chase rate was 66th lowest.

Now his strikeout rate was 23rd highest, but unlike K% peers such as Teoscar Hernandez, Josh Jung, and Luis Robert, Jones isn’t necessarily beating himself. His K% is more of a feature than a bug, since he’s swinging hard and doing damage upon making contact. And as mentioned it declined as the year went on. While September is too small of a sample to completely buy into, it’s at least a possible indicator of what could happen in 2024. And swing decisions generally improve entering a player’s peak.

As for the projections, Steamer comes in favorably for Jones, predictably predicting regression but not to the point of a full-on collapse.

The error bars on his projections are much wider than the single stat-lines indicate, which is always important to remember when using projections, especially for younger/unproven players.

His projections aren’t bad, though! It comes out to OF23 for standard 5x5 roto leagues. I’ll also note there’s no way he only steals 16 bases with this much playing time, though that can be said for most players as Steamer appears to be severely under-projecting SB totals.

So as usual my stance isn’t ALL IN, nor is it “entirely out.” I definitely want exposure to Jones this season, though I already know he won’t be this year’s “no matter what” selection.

The batting average is what I expect to take the biggest tumble in 2024, due to his ‘23 road BABIP as well as the strikeout rate. But Coors gives him a great floor, and his status as a former top prospect is another reason to believe. The barrel rate is elite. He ran a lot. There’s 30/30 upside here while functioning as Colorado’s best fantasy asset since the Nolan Arenado trade.

I also think he’s a solid buy in dynasty if league mates aren’t fully bought in. And in draft rooms where he falls past ADP, scoop him up! There’s risk, but there’s still upside at cost. Just understand the range of outcomes and don’t overexpose yourself is all.

In summary, Nolan Jones likely got pretty lucky in 2023. He also might be good.