Just to give you an idea
by JRoth95 on Sep 3, 2010 10:41 PM EDT
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Printabout Garrett Jones' crazy-low BABIP in August: in order to balance out his August and end the year at his career BABIP (±.300, majors and minors), he'll have to BABIP .483 in September. He had a nice night tonight, but I think we can agree he's unlikely to BABIP anywhere near .500, which illustrates what was so crazy about his August.
He was clearly pressing by the end of the month, but a game like tonight's should settle him some. It will be very interesting to see if he can hit himself back into the core group. His counting numbers have been OK; a wOBA of .360 for this month would end his season at .323, which is subpar for a 1B (his bat and glove play better in RF, alas), but would merit him another few months to show what he's really made of, at least.
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Jones is a slightly above average Major Leaguer. If he’s part of your “core,” you’re not going much further than 85 wins even if the rest of the “core” plays great. He’s a solid complimentary player who will help win games if used correctly. He is simply not a 155-game-a-year horse that Russell has tried to make him look like.
Starting 95-100 games (in RF) and being a top left-handed pinch hitter, he’s very valuable to a competitive team.
Free your ass and your mind will follow.
by cocktailsfor2 on Sep 4, 2010 10:53 PM EDT up reply actions
Jones is fine everyday vs. right-handed starters.
He hits like a backup catcher vs. LHP, though (.631 OPS this season, .695 in 2009 even when he was blazing hot). That’s like putting Erik Kratz or Humberto Cota in the cleanup spot.
Agreed
He’s not a disaster against lefties (and his power holds up reasonably well against them, with an ISO around 75% of his ISO vs. righties), but there’s simply no reason to be starting him against them when you have MIlledge and Pearce and Doumit in the organization.
I do suspect that, had Pearce stayed healthy and continued to produce, he would have entered a de facto platoon with Jones, even though JR doesn’t platoon. If he has to get ABs for Jones, Pearce, Doumit, and Milledge, then even JR will be smart enough to sit Jones against most lefties.
I’d say a .631 OPS anywhere in the 1-6 spot in the lineup is a disaster vs. lefties (The .695 from last season isn’t exactly walking on sunshine, either).
by Adam Reynolds on Sep 4, 2010 6:53 PM EDT up reply actions
Last night
Raised Jones’ season wOBA .002. That’s impressive in the 134th game of the year.
And Doumit is wOBAing .364 as a non-fulltime catcher.
Jones last night
looked the Jones of last year again. I think lefties will always be a challenge for him but they were for some other pretty good former Pirates as well (Richie Hebner and Andy Van Slyke come to mind, especially earlier in their careers). The point is that even not at his best, he can do some serious damage and used in a way that maximizes his opportunities to succeed (a RF and 1B rotation weighted toward righty opposition, he can be a real asset to any offense. As a full time, clean up hitting first baseman, he was miscast. All of that said, I loved the fact that he shortened up and went the opposite way last night, and am intrigued to see what he might do against them with the same approach for a couple of weeks. Even with his crazy assed horrible BABIP, the dude is still pretty high up the food chain in HRs and RBIs. And I don’t want to hear that those don’t matter. They do. Someone has to hit behind the guys getting on base in order to drive them in, and I’m not persuaded that a single guy on the 25 man roster except for Walker and Alvarez could have achieved the same numbers hitting in the middle if this lineup. He’ll probably finish the season with 24/85/.253 which numbers don’t grow on trees for minimum salary. Play him properly and you might get numbers close to the same HRs, fewer RBIs, but better BA, OBP, Slugging and wOBA. As a six hole guy who doesn’t play more than 2/3 of the games as a starter and who pinch hits against righties, I think almost any team would be happy to have him. Long story short: he is the least of our problems. If we go out and get more really good players, he’ll still have a valuable role to play and the team will be better for it.
You may not want to hear it
But Jones’s 77 RBI aren’t really indicative of any particular skill at driving in runners or getting clutch hits. He plays every day, hits behind some guys who get on base a fair amount and is a roughly league-average hitter. That’s it. Put any other league-average hitter – say, Doumit or Milledge – in the 4-hole for 550 plate appearances and they’ll have about the same number of RBI.
I don’t disagree that Jones could be kind of useful if used properly, but so far the Pirates have shown no sign of cutting back his role. Right now he’s our regular 1B and one of the very worst in baseball at his position, so he’s a major problem in my eyes.
Name me
every regular 1B in baseball who’s endured a month of .117 BABIP.
As I’ve said repeatedly, unless you can actually explain why that specific number is legit, pointing to the numbers that have resulted from what appears to be an epic case of bad luck is simply bogus. If a pitcher had a terrible ERA resulting from a 10% strand rate, no one (who understands stats) would take ERA-based arguments about him seriously. Jones is in the same boat right now. His numbers before August weren’t awe-inspiring, but he was nowhere near “one of the very worst in baseball.” The only reason you can say something like that is that he appears to have run into severely outlying bad luck.
Unless I'm mistaken
(and I can’t be arsed to look up the numbers at this stage of the evening), I think maguro is factoring GFJ’s fielding into it.,,,
Free your ass and your mind will follow.
by cocktailsfor2 on Sep 4, 2010 10:58 PM EDT up reply actions
Here's the thing...
You can’t take August’s BABIP in isolation. He had other months where he had a high BABIP and was probably a bit lucky. His season BABIP is .271, which is low but not outrageously so. GFJ’s career minor league BABIP is .295, so that is probably a decent measure of his true talent.
If Jones had a .295 BABIP on the season, his numbers improve from .247/.309/.421 to .261/.320/.438 or so, which would be about 20th or so among starting major league first basemen. So he’s still pretty bad even with a fully regressed BABIP that I’m not sure he deserves.
With his real numbers and real BABIP, he is probably the worst, and is definitely among the worst 1B in baseball. Our starting 1B and cleanup hitter has been a below-average hitter this year, that is a fact.
Again, none of this is his fault – he’s doing the best he can – and he can be a productive plaver vs. RHP. But the Pirates need to wake up to fact that this guy is not an everyday major league player.
Jones is part of...
our starting 1B’s hitting .219/.269/.358 for a .627 OPS.
Our starting cleanup hitters are hitting .246/.305/.400 for a .705 OPS.
His career BABIP
across every level is .300, ±.005. His season BABIP before August was .305. August is not part of some regression – it has led to a season BABIP that’s 30 points lower than his norm. And, as I said, he needs to BABIP almost .500 in September to get back to a normal number for him.
All that said, his wOBA for the season before August was ~.340, which is probably about right (by month he’s been .334, .332, .391, & .302). And you’re absolutely right that it’s not good enough, especially for a weak defender. He’s a better defender in right (still below average, but only just, per both my eyeball and UZR), and his bat plays much better there (just below average). Unfortunately for the Pirates, they have more viable alternatives in RF than at 1B, so there he stays.
Fine, but find me substantially better at the price
Especially given that I think he is going to better next year than this.
He isn't the real deal, we know that
And he won’t be part of a long term winner. We know that too. He probably is considerably better than he played in August, and considerably less good than last season. He is improving at first and quite good at stretching and scooping, but not much else. He is better in right, but still below par defensively. The bottom line is that we need more good players so he can be used in a right field platoon (I like him and Pearce at right or first as a platoon). There are times I watch Jones hit that I’m convinced he can be a really good hitter (Friday) and other times I’m convinced he already turned into a pumpkin (yesterday and today). And just when you’re ready to give up on him, he hits the hell out of the ball. If he wasn’t 29, it would be easier, but it is what it is.
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