The best story in the early part of the Pirates season has been Jared Jones.
Drafted in the second round in 2020 out of La Mirada High School, Jones has exploded onto the scene with a 3.18 ERA in 34 innings, led by a dominant 42:5 K/BB ratio. Baseball America just updated their top 100 prospect rankings, with Jones ranked as the second best pitching prospect in the game, behind Paul Skenes. What Jones is doing is special, and something the Pirates haven’t seen a lot of in the past from their rookies.
Why haven’t the Pirates gotten more results like this?
That’s the question that everyone wants answered, and I don’t think there’s one singular answer. My belief is that the Pirates add too much pressure on young, unproven players. We are seeing that right now with Henry Davis and Oneil Cruz. The team needs them to reach their prospect upsides in order to contend. Davis and Cruz were part of the rebuild plan, and now we’ve reached the time where the Pirates are not only trying to win on that plan, but they’re doing so while hoping Davis and Cruz emerge as leaders in that winning push.
The difference with Jones is that he almost forced his way onto the roster, while Davis and Cruz have arguably been given their spots.
Jones pitched 16 shutout innings in Spring Training, while shutting down MLB lineups in the same way he’s been doing at the start of the season. Ultimately, when a player is ready to be a Major Leaguer, with a healthy level of confidence in his stuff and abilities, nothing can hold him back.
Within the story of Jones is a story of a confident person who learned how to be skilled and crafted with his approach.
When I talk about a healthy level of confidence, note that there can be unhealthy levels. Davis seems very confident in his approach at the plate, but his massive power cuts at every pitch lead to a 34.9% strikeout rate and an .044 isolated power. Those do not justifying the confidence in continuing to take such big cuts with every swing. Cruz seems confident enough that he can shake any bad performance off, even in the midst of a .239/.288/.342 performance with a 36.8% strikeout rate.
How did Jones become ready for the Majors?
Jones recently spoke with David Laurila at FanGraphs, talking about his approach from a thrower to a pitcher. Out of the high school ranks, Jones would just power his pitches past opponents. He’s also doing the same thing now. However, in between the prep level and the Majors, Jones spent time learning how and why his stuff works.
“To be completely honest, I don’t know what my pitches did in high school,” Jones told FanGraphs. “I just threw them. I didn’t know what vertical break or horizontal break was until my first year of pro ball. They showed me things like [TrackMan data] and I had no idea what it was until I started asking questions. I had no idea what the analytics were, or what they meant.”
Let’s use this situation as an example of successful development. It came with the Pirates. But why has Jones worked out when other players have failed, and are actively failing in the Majors right now?
KNOWLEDGE VERSUS UNDERSTANDING
As I’ve gotten older in my life, I’ve realized there is a massive difference between knowing something and understanding something.
Knowledge is potentially unlimited. You gain knowledge through experience, or through educating yourself. In terms of baseball, knowing that a pitcher sits 98 MPH is knowledge. Knowing that a pitcher has a slider that generates a high amount of whiffs is knowledge.
Understanding comes when you learn why that knowledge is important. When you learn how those pitches work together, and how they can lead to success, that is understanding.
As an example, we know that Jones throws 98 with a ridiculous hard slider. When you watch the two pitches overlayed, and see how they both look the same until an extreme diversion at the last second, you start to understand how he’s getting results.
https://twitter.com/PitchingNinja/status/1782572242431303836
Tracking the career of Jones, per the FanGraphs article, he was hitting 97 MPH as a sophomore in high school. Jones knew he had exceptional stuff. When he entered pro ball, he gained further knowledge of his stuff, through the TrackMan data. From there, he would eventually reach a point where understanding is the only step.
There needs to be a point with every prospect where they stop acquiring knowledge and start working toward an understanding of the knowledge they have on their game.
