ZiPS Player Profile, Garrett Jones
by D.Szymborski on Sep 4, 2009 1:20 AM EDT
71 comments
ZiPS Profile - Garrett Jones, RF (28) ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Year AB R H 2B 3B HR RBI BB SO SB BA OBP SLG OPS+ ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ TRANSLATIONS ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ 2002 226 5 31 6 0 6 20 9 100 2 .137 .169 .243 6 2003 413 20 70 10 3 13 48 22 125 3 .169 .213 .303 35 2004 525 29 129 29 1 21 69 22 144 9 .246 .280 .425 82 2005 493 39 107 19 1 20 59 29 117 4 .217 .261 .381 63 2006 532 43 112 28 2 17 75 40 130 2 .211 .266 .367 65 2007 405 38 101 28 2 11 58 26 89 2 .249 .296 .410 82 2008 533 50 134 29 2 19 76 41 106 7 .251 .302 .420 91 2009 279 29 76 18 0 11 43 17 51 11 .272 .313 .455 107 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ MLB NUMBERS ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ 2007 77 7 16 2 1 2 5 6 20 1 .208 .262 .338 60 2009 214 32 63 14 1 18 34 23 49 9 .294 .363 .621 159 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ PROJECTIONS ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ 2009r 99 12 26 6 0 4 14 7 20 2 .261 .313 .461 105 2010 548 72 152 36 2 26 91 44 118 12 .277 .331 .493 111 2011 516 69 142 32 2 24 83 40 104 12 .275 .327 .484 108 2012 507 67 138 30 2 23 79 40 101 11 .272 .325 .475 105 2013 492 63 131 29 2 21 74 37 99 11 .266 .317 .461 100 2014 485 61 127 28 2 20 71 37 98 9 .262 .313 .452 96 2015 475 58 122 27 2 18 67 36 97 9 .257 .308 .436 91 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Top Comps: Ruben Sierra, Mike Davis, Candy Maldonado, Wally Post ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ ODDIBE (ODDS OF IMPORTANT BASEBALL EVENTS) ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Overall Offense for Starters Top Quintile 18% 2nd Quintile 25% Mid Quintile 18% 4th Quintile 17% Low Quintile 22% OPS+ OBP 3B Hits 160+ 1% .400+ 1% 10+ 0% 200+ 0% 140+ 10% .375+ 8% 5+ 15% 150+ 55% 130+ 23% .350+ 26% 120+ 35% .325+ 57% 2B 110+ 54% .300+ 85% 45+ 15% 100+ 73% 30+ 76% 90+ 86% 80+ 94% 60+ 99% BA SLG HR SB .350+ 1% .550+ 18% 50+ 1% 70+ 0% .325+ 6% .500+ 49% 40+ 7% 50+ 0% .300+ 23% .450+ 79% 30+ 34% 30+ 0% .275+ 53% .400+ 95% 20+ 78% 10+ 59% .250+ 83% .350+ 100% 10+ 99%
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I'll Take ANother Wally Post!
Any guy who compares to Wally Post is a starter on my team!
I have not heard Wally’s name in a long time. I never thought anyone could compare to him! After looking at Wally’s stats, his story line is quite different than GJ. Wally came up as a 19 year old, played for 15 years, and hit 210HRs. I doubt than GJ will do this.
Anyway, Im a GJ fan! I hope he hits 40 HR next year!
Interesting stuff, Dan - thanks for sharing.
I’d been wondering what a 2010 ZiPS for Jones would look like.
I am surprised that you don't explain to Dan
how Jones’ minor league numbers clearly indicate he can never be a respectable major league hitter like you’ve done with everyone else here who has suggested that Jones could be decent.
The projections seem to indicate a slightly better than league average hitter . . .
if you consider a first basemen or a butcher of a right fielder who is a slightly better than league average hitter something to get excited about, more power to you.
Sure.....
that is what the projections suggest and it certainly is what is most likely to happen. But if you don’t get excited about a guy with a 159 OPS+ and 18 HRs in 214 ABs, I’m pretty sure no individual performance is ever going to do it for you.
Andrew McCutchen's has most definitely excited me.
It’s all about the context and taking all available information and forming an opinion.
Evidence matters, yo.
If people had waited 200+ successful PA before annointing Jones, rather than relying on wishcasting and BUT HE’S AWESOME, then we wouldn’t have had to fight.
His 2010 ZiPS OPS is about 50 points above his 2009 one, thanks to his success in the majors, which is just enough to nudge him across the border between “useful” and “not”. I’d still prefer not to see him starting with that 2010 line, but it’s tolerable for a temp starter and solid for a bench bat.
The problem with using statistics to predict performance is that they don’t account for the steroid step function.
Minor League ISO: ~.200
2009 Major League ISO: .327
That’s a big (and quick) power spike for a 28 year old.
charity standing orders
In the absence of any actual evidence...
…I think it’s pretty scummy to accuse a guy of using steroids.
Really?
You don’t think he gets tested or you just think he’s figured out a way to be the system?
It’s becoming more and more apparent that he has significantly improved his quality of play, particularly power-wise, in the last couple of months. Even ZiPS agrees. Who knows whether he did it through legitimate means or not, but don’t everyone act like it would be such a huge surprise if a baseball player found a way to get ahead and did it.
charity standing orders
There are probably ways to beat the system.
I just don’t see any reason to reach for PEDs as the magical solution to any unexplained performance. Sometimes guys are just unexpectedly good/bad.
Well, sorry to piss everyone off by jumping to conclusions, but can we at least agree that his performance seems to have largely been caused by a sudden, inexplicable jump in power? This isn’t a high BABIP driven SLG% or something. Most of his other peripherals are within reasonable variances of his MLE’s, but ISO is a very stable, low variance statistic above age ~25 and apart from drops due to injury. He’s put up an ISO of .198 +/- .007 in each of the last 4 seasons (including this one) at AAA. If he hasn’t developed more power, putting up a .327 ISO in 237 PA’s has to be in something like the 98th percentile. It’s very unlikely to be a statistical fluke.
Maybe the real question is should we trust his reported age? Could he actually be more like 24?
charity standing orders
No...
…his performance has resulted in a lot of home runs being hit. We don’t really know what the cause might be, or if there even is one outside of statistical bunching.
IMO, Jones just likes better pitching. The AAA stuff made him bored.
by Gorkys n' Beans on Sep 5, 2009 12:29 PM EDT up reply actions
There are what, a little over a thousand guys who play in MLB in any given season? A population that large, you’d tend to expect a few extreme outliers…
by Vlad on Sep 6, 2009 9:05 AM EDT via mobile up reply actions
It seems unlike you to use “maybe he’s an extreme outlier” as an explanation. Yes, there are a thousand MLB players, but we’re talking about one. The other thousand players don’t make it any more likely that Jones is a statistical anomaly.
Of course, Jones IS an outlier, either in his improbably lucky power statistics over 235 AB or in his improbable development pattern or a lot of both. Or he’s cheating.
I’m not accusing him. I’m just acknowledging that it’s a real possibility.
charity standing orders
There are always going to be outliers, though. If we chart expected vs. actual performance using a bell curve, 95% of players fall within the expected standard deviation range of performance.
But there will be close to 2.5% on each side (way better and way worse than expected) which is a significant number of players given how many get a decent amount of playing time in the Bigs per year.
- Gorkys'nBeans
by Adam Reynolds on Sep 9, 2009 12:16 PM EDT up reply actions
A couple things
1. What is the “expected standard deviation range of performance” for ISO? Seriously, is there a resource for this? He’s outperformed his expected value by over 100 points, and I can’t prove it, but I’d venture that in 261 PA’s, that’s more than 2 std deviations off expected value. Like I said above, this isn’t BABIP we’re talking about.
2. The “outlier” argument is a weak one, even if he’s only in the 97.5th percentile. There are outliers in a large population, but without improving, Garrett Jones still only had a 2.5% chance of putting up numbers that are 2 std dev off the expected value. It’s possible, but it leaves you looking for a more likely solution – which is why people are now starting to rethink how good he is.
3. There really are two processes in play here, which makes it hard to isolate either. Here is the Garrett Jones problem:
- Jones was X good from 2005-2008
- Jones has been Y good from July 2009 to present
- Jones’ numbers have been Z good from July 2009 to present
We all agree that X is pretty well defined, and that there is a very big gap from X to Z. What we don’t know is Y, so we don’t know how much of the improvement has been due to actual improvements (Y-X) and how much is due to good fortune (Z-Y).
Either case, a big, quick improvement at age 28 or a ton of good fortune in the power department (but not really anywhere else), or even a least squares combination of the two isn’t particularly likely. If his K% suddenly dropped to 10% and that was the driving force behind his .416 wOBA, we wouldn’t be having this discussion, because there’s no easy shortcut to making contact. There is one for power, however, and in my opinion, it enters the discussion for lack of a good explanation.
It’s nice to give people the benefit of the doubt, and maybe I’m just a cynical bastard, but I don’t see the need to. It would pretty unethical to bring this up without more concrete evidence if I were a reporter or someone in the industry, but I’m just a dude on the internet. My opinions, suggestions, and accusations carry no weight.
charity standing orders
One thing I’d add is that age 27-28 is the most likely area for a player to reach his natural power peak. It would be much less likely if Jones was 34 and doing this.
Steve Pearce has a minor league resume filled with mediocre work especially for a 1B, except for his surprising power spike in 2007. The fact that he hasn’t come close to that level in 08 or 09 regarding power would bring up the same type of question we are asking on Jones. You could play this game with a lot of players.
- Gorkys'nBeans
by Adam Reynolds on Sep 9, 2009 2:31 PM EDT up reply actions
Pearce's minor league resume isn't "mediocre".
Over five seasons in the minors, his aggregate OPSes by year have been (oldest first) .856, .876, 1.016, .729, and .875. All but 2008 are above-average performances.
His 2007 wasn’t really that much of a power spike, either. He had 26 HR and a .250 ISO in 2006, and 31 HR and a .289 ISO in 2007. The biggest difference between the two seasons is the 60-point swing in his BA.
Hold on
Isn’t .40 of ISO a big jump? I thought it doesn’t jump around nearly as much as BABIP or AVG. Am I wrong, or are you stretching a bit?
Yes and no.
It’s a notable increase, but it’s not really out of the ordinary for a young power hitter to show an increase of that sort. Neil Walker, for example, had a 41-point bounce in his ISO from 2008 to 2009, and McCutchen’s 2009 ISO was 75 points higher than his 2008. Prospects at that age often show significant skill growth in power, as their bodies start to fill out.
The dramatic increase in BA stands out as anomalous, though, and an increase in BA is mirrored in SLG (one reason I prefer ISO or TB/H when looking at a guy’s power in isolation). The high SLG made it appear that Pearce had added more power than he did, when in fact a lot of it was just extra singles from getting BABIP-lucky (though we didn’t have enough of a track record on him to know it at the time).
I'm not sure the jump is as stark as that
I think that GJ’s aggregate MiL stats look worse than the trend because his first 1200 ABs, in rookie and low-A, were awful – I’m actually not sure how he stayed in baseball. But since his breakout 2004, he’s OPSed .911 .741 .733 .807 .821, and .850. Now, that’s 2 crappy years in AAA, and none of the years are great, plus he was old by the time he started hitting better in AAA.
But, nonetheless, I’m not sure the line is quite as bright as people generally say. By last season, fellow MiLers viewed him as a masher – he still didn’t project as a ML stud, but he wasn’t the .733 loser of a few years earlier. Throw in a mechanical adjustment in spring training and a fair bit of luck, and here we are. No chemical assistance needed.
Anyway, if you think he’s enhanced, when do you think it happened? He hit pretty damn well in Indy, but his SLG has been pretty similar the last 3 MiL years. It’s absurd to think that he did it on the flight in from Indy, so when did he get juiced?
As far as accusations of drugs are concerned...
…I treat all players as clean until there’s actual proof that they aren’t. This includes Jones.
Just curious
Do you consider Bonds and Clemens to have “actual proof”? I’m just wondering how high the evidentiary bar is for you.
Nothing at all to do with Jones, of course.
Yes.
I would consider both to be proven at this point.
Assuming that Bonds’s testimony in the BALCO case as represented in the media is accurate (insofar as he probably would’ve disputed it if it were substantially inaccurate), he’s on the record as having used both “the cream” and “the clear”, even if he says that he didn’t know what they were when he was using them.
I find the Mitchell Report’s evidence on Clemens sufficiently persuasive, given the testimony of both McNamee and Grimsley.
Pretty dumb suggestion.
So you’re saying after his entire minor league career of not taking steroids because he was tested repeatedly in the minors, he starts a cycle the day he gets called up, starts working out like an animal, and he’s already mashing? Just a silly thing to even suggest.
He’s hot. Ride it out. Stop trying to figure it out.
Yeah…it’s ridiculous, and it doesn’t even make logical sense.
by Gorkys n' Beans on Sep 4, 2009 5:18 PM EDT up reply actions
No you are not.
You are not suggesting; you are casting a cloud of suspicion on the performance of a player who has done nothing to deserve it, and you are doing so with no evidence to support your theory other than statistical fluctuation of performance levels. It’s irresponsible and deplorable.
Formerly known as Econolodge
Question
Pitcher on roids, batter on roids, who wins? Should all of the stats really be adjusted? I am guessing that an equal percentage of pitchers and hitters were on the juice.
So who would you rather see in the third OF spot and 1B
more Moss and a Clement/Pearce platoon?
It seems to me it would be a mistake not to give Jones a shot next season unless he collapses in Septemer. If I understand the lower part of the chart correctly he has a 30% of posting an OPS+ of 130 or more, which is at least pretty good for a Pirate.
I could potentially sign off on a Clement/Pearce platoon.
The other possibility would be to go out in FA and get someone better than all of those options. 1B is usually a pretty deep position.
110 OPS+ is 1B performance you can live with, but it’s not really moving you forward. And Jones’s glove hurts his value there as well.
But for an FA
What would that cost? I guess you can use whatever Adam LaRoche gets as a baseline.
Or maybe we can sign Adam ourself
I am sure that would get a reaction from the participants here.
Hopefully no one signs him
And we can pick him up in July.
There are often solid offensive 1Bs...
…available for a million bucks or less. Given the low defensive requirement for the position, the population of available players is huge.
by Vlad on Sep 6, 2009 9:06 AM EDT via mobile up reply actions
I like the Clement/Pearce platoon
That does leave Jones out, though. I was a skeptic as well, but until he slows down on the power production, I doubt the team will write him off. And they’re smart not to.
www.sixtyftsixin.com
Evidence matters, yo....
“His 2010 ZiPS OPS is about 50 points above his 2009 one, thanks to his success in the majors, which is just enough to nudge him across the border between "useful" and "not".”
And it’s about 160 points below his ACTUAL 2009 major league line which is the difference between “all-star” and “useful”. Let’s remember ZIPS, as it should, has underprojected this whole season. As you pointed out when MVP had only 8 or 9 homers it had him hitting 12 for the season.
I’m pretty comfortable I was never in the wishcasting camp, but I’m sure I was in the “his performance has been awesome” camp. And it continues to be. The list is long of the people on this blog who said 50 at bats it’s a fluke, 75 at bats, it’s a fluke, 100 at bats, etc. We’ll it’s now 227 ABs and 252 PAs and his OPS is .994. As I have pointed out before, of guys with 225 ABs, only Pujols, Fielder and Hanley Ramirez have put up better numbers. (And Ramirez is tied)
Vlad, we both realize that few jobs are or should be won in spring training. Jones will be starting the first 80 next year at first or in right, barring injury. It’s a done deal.
Now I am just wondering if you’ve decided on your method if he hits 20? Because you can argue with/condemn the withcasters and their methods all you like, but thus far they have been right and you have been wrong.
I think you were pretty clearly wishcasting...
…albeit not as badly as some other people here. Which is fine. Sometimes when you play Russian roulette, the other guy gets the bullet.
ZiPS is based on a linear regression of the last three years’ performance, plus the current season’s sample. If it’s been lagging Jones’s actual performance all year, that’s only because there’s nothing in his prior three years’ performance to suggest that he’d hit the way he has this year. You can see the translated lines at the top of the page for yourself.
Realistically, I recognize that Jones will probably go into the season as the starter somewhere, either 1B or RF depending on how the rest of the offseason shakes out. But in isolation, and with no names attached, a 111 OPS+ isn’t great production from a poor defensive 1B/OF. It’s the kind of play that’s useful, but not the kind that would (or at least should) stand in the way of an upgrade if one’s available.
As to your question about “my method” if he hits 20, I’m not sure what you’re asking.
Really....?
we’ll you can find it in other threads and it is referenced in another post that Charlie listed today. You said you’d kill yourself if GJ hit 20 homers this year. You also said that you would feel differently if he posted an OPS of 1.000 in 100 at bats or .900 in 200 at bats or even .800-.850 in 300 at bats.
Wishcasting and observing are two different things. I understand how stats work and how ZIPS is calculated. Go back and look at every thread. I said I had never seen Jones play before this year and asked if others had seen him play. I asked this for a reason.
I saw 50 of his first 60 at bats. Liked his approach at the plate, his command of the strike zone, his power and his seeming ability to hit lefties and righties equally well. I argued that the guy should stay in the lineup until he cools off. And then, after he continued his pace through about 125 at bats I said he should start everyday the rest of the season so we had a better idea of what we had. That is exactly what I said and what I argued.
I railed against the argument that we were wasting his at bats because he is 28 and had a poor minor league track record.
And yes an OPS+ of 111 isn’t that good as you rightly suggest. His OPS+ of 158 is pretty damn exceptional.
Matskraic: I’ve never suggested you don’t use analysis to forecast. That is exactly what you do. But you also use what actually happened to talk about what actually happened. You saying he sucks continually and it can’t last when he is posting an OPS+ of 158 isn’t really very relevant.
I didn't say that I'd kill myself.
I said that I’d die, that God would strike me dead. If it does end up coming to that, I’d probably rather have the “method” remain a surprise…
When I gave the 200 AB, 300 AB, etc., it was in response to a question about what level of production would force me to re-evaluate my projection of Jones. He didn’t quite make a 1.000 over 200 AB, but he’s close enough that I revisited it anyway and (as noted above) bumped him up from “waste of a roster space” to “good bench player, tolerable temp starter”. As he keeps hitting (if he keeps hitting), that projection will adjust accordingly. That’s how it works when you do an impartial analysis – you look at the evidence, and you go where it leads you.
Your railing “against the argument that we were wasting his at bats because he is 28 and had a poor minor league track record” is the wishcasting to which I was referring. Age and past performance are the two best predictors of future performance. You ignore them at your peril, even when a guy looks good to the naked eye.
The method part is pretty damn funny.....
As to the other part, I only argued that while he was hot he should keep playing. I realize all the evidence pointed that this level of production was extremely unlikely.
Heh
Lots of people having trouble spelling my name right lately. ;-)
Of course you use what actually happened. And you weight it appropriately. 200 PAs of 158 OPS+ don’t carry as much weight against, what, 2500 uninspiring minor league plate appearances as I think you’re trying to assign it. His hot couple months don’t cancel out the seven and a half previous seasons. I’m not ignoring his season so far, but it has to be severly discounted because even at this size, the data set can easily be dominated by noise.
I’m fine with going along with Vlad and re-classifying Jones from “waste of good bench space” to “corner backup/temporary starter on a crappy team like ours”. A league average bat (very important to note this is not the same thing as a positionally average bat) off the bench for a year or two isn’t bad, although he’s definitely a butcher in the field.
I would certainly take a 277/331/493 line from Jones next year…hope he can actually put those numbers up over a full season.
Actually,
a 111 OPS+ isn’t very good for the positions he plays, is it? Adam LaRoche is a better player than this.
It's Adam's career line minus 10 points of OBP
I’d still take that. Too bad LaRoche hit 247/329/441 with us and a Garrett Jones-esqe 361/440/611 with ATL. Sandbagger. I fart in his general direction.
If Jones really does hit around 277/331/493 next year, I wonder how long before Tabata/Alvarez come up or where he gets pushed to when Tabata/Alvarez arrive in mid-2010. 1B and sit Andy? He’d be a nasty 4th OF/1B for a contender.
I didn’t say it was “very good” or that Jones is a better player than Adam LaRoche, just that I would be happy to take that level of production from Jones next year. It makes him a decent big-league player, which is about all you can resonably expect from someone with his track record.
Oh, I understood
I just meant, it doesn’t take a lot to make us happy anymore.
HIs Age
If this is what he is, I have no problem with him being the 1B of the future. If he is under team control for 6 years, that means we have him till 2015, when he would be 34. If he walks at that point fine. I wouldn’t mind having that kind of production from a guy who also has the experience of cutting his teeth in the minors for an extended period and then could serve as a mentor to the baby bucs.
When Tabata, Alvarez, Cutch, etc are all in their primes, it wouldn’t be so bad to have a crash davis type 1B around the clubhouse hitting 30 HR on the field. Let alone that late 20s/ early 30’s isn’t ACTUALLY that old
RIP NATE. RIP TONY PLUSH.
"I'D BE A CHEF"
-TONY PLUSH
It's not old
for most anything except baseball and Olympic gymnastics. Me, I’ll tell you 52 ain’t old, ain’t old at all.
Oh
late 20s/early 30s is a little old for day care too.
Age is but a number...
King Arthur: Old woman.
Dennis: Man.
King Arthur: Man, sorry. What knight lives in that castle over there?
Dennis: I’m 37.
King Arthur: What?
Dennis: I’m 37. I’m not old.
King Arthur: Well I can’t just call you “man”.
Dennis: Well you could say “Dennis”.
King Arthur: I didn’t know you were called Dennis.
Dennis: Well you didn’t bother to find out did you?
King Arthur: I did say sorry about the “old woman”, but from behind you looked…
Dennis: What I object to is you automatically treat me like an inferior.
King Arthur: Well I am king.
Dennis: Oh, king eh? Very nice. And how’d you get that, eh? By exploiting the workers. By hanging on to outdated imperialist dogma which perpetuates the economic and social differences in our society.
Free your ass and your mind will follow.
by cocktailsfor2 on Sep 4, 2009 8:39 PM EDT up reply actions
Strange women lying in ponds, distributing swords is no basis for a system of government.
Supreme executive power must be derived from a mandate from the masses, not from some farcical aquatic ceremony.
by houksyndrome on Sep 5, 2009 12:38 AM EDT up reply actions
I think
people forget how bad our 1B production has been. Seriously, go look back at our 1B for the past 17 years. Jones is on part with Adam LaRoche and other than a couple of really good seasons from Kevin Young is way better than the Randall Simons, Sean Caseys and Mark Jonsons of the world. All hail The Legend!
never been a big supporter of GJ
but if he keeps this up, i m happy to have him start everyday, and have more efforts made toward keeping pedro alvarez at 3rd…
and yeah, i wouldnt trade him away now either, unless the offer was mindblowing…
Speaking of 1st base
is there a reason Clement hasn’t been called up yet? Are they waiting to after the 13th to get that extra year of service time out of him?
If the projection for the 2009 remainder matches to reality....
Then I will believe the rest is probable. Until then, I’ll have to believe the guy has made some serious adjustments to his technique and approach, and that has made all the difference.
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