Grey doesn’t feed me bananas if the title of my piece isn’t witty and funny. So, naturally, I’m a skinny monkey but I try, and I wanted to go with an Indiana Jones theme with Short Round yelling Doctor Jones for this one. Something something about hidden treasure and discovery, but then I ran across a clip of Amy from The Big Bang Theory ruining Raiders of the Lost Ark and now my world ceases to have meaning. But I’m a “professional”, so the show must go on. Nolan Jones of the Colorado Rockies isn’t quite a hidden treasure, as he was a top prospect and is being started in NFBC leagues, but he’s still only 21.8% owned in ESPN leagues and has been on quite the heater. Let’s dig in.
Jones is 25 years old, 6-foot-4, 195 pounds, and bats from the left side. He was selected by the Cleveland Indians in the second round of the 2016 MLB draft. He was then traded to the Rockies in November of 2022.
From the outset of his minor league career, the strikeout rate was high but the walk rate was very good. Like very, very good. It was above 16% for the first four years with two of those at 20%. The BABIP was sky-high, in the .400 range in the first four seasons as well. As he progressed through the system, the walk rate ticked down while the strikeout rate ticked up. By the time he made it to Triple-A in 2021, the walk rate was 14% while the strikeout rate was 30%. The ISO was a tick under .200.
In 2022, he received 94 plate appearances with the Indians MLB club and had an 8.5% walk rate, 33% strikeout rate, and .128 ISO. In 64 plate appearances this season, the walk rate is 9.4%, strikeout rate is 29.7% and ISO is .293. The BABIP is .457 while the slash is .345/.406/.638. He has four home runs and four stolen bases.
Let’s address the speed first before getting into the hitting profile. Statcast has Jones in the 77th percentile for sprint speed. He did steal 10 bases in 407 plate appearances with the Indians Triple-A club in 2021, so he is not devoid of wheels, but he never cracked five stolen bases in any other season. I wouldn’t bank on stolen bases from Jones, but it’s a nice bonus if the prowess continues.
Now for the hitting. The .457 BABIP is obviously going to come down, but he did exhibit high BABIP numbers early in his career. That may tie in with his 77th percentile speed. In addition, he now plays half of his games in Coors Field, so maintaining a high BABIP is within the range of outcomes. Steamer has a .339 BABIP for the remainder of the season. That is probably the likely outcome but it wouldn’t shock me if it comes in higher than that for the aforementioned reasons.
The Statcast numbers are mouth-watering. The average EV is 92.4 mph while the maxEV is 114.2 mph. If he qualified, that would place him in the top 25 for both. The barrel rate of 17.9% would be top 10. The power is real. Is it .300 ISO real? Probably not. More like around .190 to .200 but that’s still good.
The batted ball profile shows that he hits his fair share of ground balls (41%) with a fly ball rate at 33.3%. That could also explain the high BABIP. Jones pulls the ball 41% of the time while going oppo 30.8%. I like to see that.
Now comes my favorite part of the program: Plate discipline.
With a 30% strikeout rate, I expected huge chase and swinging strike rate numbers. To my surprise, Jones is only chasing 26.9% of pitches while the swinging strike rate is 8.8%. During his brief stint in the majors with Cleveland back in 2022, the chase rate was 26.8% while the swinging strike rate was 12.4%. Throughout his minor league career, the swinging strike rate was often in the 10% range, with the highest numbers being 12.2% and 12.4%. Me likey.
In 2022, he only received five plate appearances against left-handed pitching. He did not collect a hit and struck out twice. So far this season, Jones has 18 plate appearances against LHP. He’s struck out five times but has walked twice and collected two singles, a double and a home run. He has been mashing RHP.
Since being called up on May 26th, Jones has started four games at first base and the rest in the outfield. He initially batted seventh in the lineup but has slowly crept up to the five spot.
There’s going to be regression and uncertainty about how he will adjust to the inevitable adjustments and how long of a leash the coaching staff will give him. I do like that he already has a little bit of MLB experience. In addition, he’s playing half of his game in Colorado. The floor is that he gets sent back down to Triple-A but I think Jones has a chance to stick around because the profile doesn’t show any egregious red flags.
