Mueller: Jones' jaw-dropping start a bright spot for beleaguered Bucs
An admission, to start:
Whenever the Pirates bring up a young, talented prospect, I prepare myself for disappointment. After all, I’m old enough to remember reading that Chad Hermansen could “walk on water,” in the words of his Gulf Coast League manager, Woody Hyuke.
Jose Guillen? Electrifying arm, tantalizing potential…never happened for him here. Aramis Ramirez looked like a star in the making, then got traded.
For every Andrew McCutchen, there seem to be three or four Gregory Polancos. Or Brad Lincolns. Or Jose Tabatas. I could continue. I won’t, but I could.
My analysis might be more anecdotal than anything, a consequence of mostly seeing highlights of other teams around baseball, and not full games, but it seems like everyone else’s big-name prospects are more successful than the Pirates’.
Even now, this seems like it’s playing out. Henry Davis struggled so badly he got sent back to Triple-A, and Oneil Cruz is still trying to get on track. Meanwhile, Cincinnati’s Elly De La Cruz has a .900 OPS, and is flashing truly rare speed and power. He’s also two years younger than Davis, and three younger than Cruz.
So, yes, historical and contemporary examples have scared me away from truly believing in any young prospect. I’m always waiting for the other shoe to drop.
I am making an exception to that rule for Jared Jones.
You’ll forgive me for waiting until he had seven starts under his belt to say any of this. Old habits die hard.
I have watched Pirates baseball with both interest and at least rudimentary comprehension skills since 1991 or so, when I was six years old. Jones is the most exciting rookie I’ve ever seen don the uniform. That includes McCutchen and Gerrit Cole. It might even include top overall pick Paul Skenes, set to make his big-league debut Saturday.
My biggest concern with most Pirates prospects is whether or not they’re actually good. With Jones, it is a strangely welcome change of pace to fret only about his health. You truly never know when it comes to a young pitcher, particularly one who throws as hard as Jones does.
Actually, saying he throws hard is probably an understatement. Lots of guys throw hard. Very few possess the kind of lightning Jones has in his right arm. Is it his velocity that’s most impressive? A vicious, borderline-unfair slider? Or the fact that he seems to be able to place both of those pitches precisely where he wants to about 95 percent of the time?
It’s really the pitching equivalent of, “Tastes great! Less filling!”
The location is the most impressive and important part of all of this, in my opinion. Cole had a similarly spectacular arm, but he couldn’t command what he was throwing like Jones does, particularly his off-speed stuff. Hitters didn’t really have to honor his slider, because it often looked like a ball coming out of his hand.
Jones paints the corners, gets hitters off-balance, then forces them to chase his pitches; fastballs up in the zone that they’ll never catch up to, sliders in the dirt that they can’t resist. It’s Pitching 101, done not by a crafty veteran, but by someone who could probably get away with relying on raw talent.
Lest you think I’m suffering from Pittsburgh Fishbowl Disease, and am overstating how good Jones has been, here is a brief list of his accomplishments:
-Per MLB’s Sarah Langs, he’s the 17th pitcher since at least 1901 with 50+ strikeouts in his first seven outings. He’s the first pitcher of that group to have at least 50 strikeouts and 5 or fewer walks.
-Per Baseball Reference, his four starts with 7+ strikeouts and no walks is the most ever for a pitcher in their first seven career games. He passed Stephen Strasburg to earn that distinction.
-His 52 strikeouts are second-most in the major leagues this year.
-He’s the first pitcher in Pirates history to have the following stat line: 7 or more shutout innings, 1 or fewer hits allowed, 10 strikeouts and no walks.
-Read that last one again. First in team history. And he did it in his seventh start.
My favorite thing about these first six weeks of JonesMania? His most dominant start came immediately after his worst career outing, one that saw him go just five innings, and give up three earned runs. He dealt with adversity, and did it with authority.
That’s the sign of a guy who had to deal with adversity in the minor leagues, and learn to overcome it, something Jones told me about on 93.7 The Fan, the day before his electrifying big-league debut.
More recently on The Fan, the 22-year-old phenom described himself by saying, “I’ve always been a pretty [ticked] off pitcher…”
If he keeps this up, the only angry ones will be opposing hitters.
Actually, check that. If he keeps this up, they’ll be too demoralized to be angry.