Nolan Jones, Shadow King

By most any measure, Rockies outfielder Nolan Jones had a wonderful rookie season in 2023. He completed fourth in National League Rookie of the Year voting behind unanimous winner Corbin Carroll, Kodai Senga, and James Outman. He posted a .297/.389/.542 batting line in 106 video games, turning into the primary Rockie rookie to go 20-20 in franchise historical past. His .395 wOBA ranked tenth among the many 212 gamers with no less than 400 plate appearances. He was an above-average fielder, spending most of his time within the outfield corners, along with his pretty poor vary greater than made up for by his elite arm (OAA, DRS, and UZR all agree that he was a plus defender). He led Colorado with 3.0 BsR, and completed as certainly one of 12 gamers within the majors with as many as 3.0 runs above common in every of batting, base operating, and fielding worth:

By the tip of the season, he had posted 3.7 WAR, the equal of 5.7 WAR per 162 video games — good for 18th within the majors amongst gamers who performed 100 or extra video games. Mile-high caveats apart, that’s a reasonably spectacular debut:

There’s one factor about Jones’ rookie 12 months that caught out to me specifically. His method on the plate was reasonably profitable total — he hit fastballs and breaking pitches, hit for energy and common, and drew walks — however his success on pitches within the shadow of the zone was unmatched throughout all of baseball. On pitches in Baseball Savant’s “shadow” zone, Jones generated 18.3 runs of worth, essentially the most of any hitter within the league. Luis Arraez was second with 17.0 runs, and past Arraez, no different hitter had greater than Shohei Ohtani at 12.1. On a price foundation, Jones was even additional faraway from the pack — his 2.4 runs per 100 shadow pitches was trailed most carefully by Arraez at 1.8, a full 25% decrease.

What’s significantly interested in Jones’ success on the fringes of the strike zone is that he did plenty of that injury swinging. For many of the league, swinging at pitches on the sting didn’t go all that properly — as a league, hitters had been price -3.3 runs per 100 pitches on swings at these pitches and nearly zero on taken pitches. But for Jones, swinging at these pitches was rather more fruitful — he generated 4.4 runs per 100 swings on shadow pitches, and simply 0.7 per 100 takes. Jones had a outstanding .413 wOBA on pitches on the shadow of the plate — and that went as much as .429 when he swung the bat:

It’s an amazingly useful talent, having the ability to management the skin edges of the strike zone like that. Stuck between the rock that’s the coronary heart of the plate and the exhausting place that’s the chase zone, pitchers actually don’t have any alternative however to proceed to assault on the shadow, particularly in opposition to a hitter like Jones who’s an influence risk over the guts and manages to keep away from chasing at better-than-average charges. He does have some holes within the higher third of the strike zone, however a pitcher can solely exploit that a lot when there’s nowhere else to go. Jones seems to dominate the perimeters with the perfect of them, and that made him a far tougher out in 2023.

Towards the tip of the season, pitchers strayed away from the strike zone. Jones countered that transfer with the perfect software there’s in that state of affairs: persistence. As Jones’ chase price rose by means of the late summer time, opposing pitchers attacked the strike zone much less, and Jones was fast to regulate, along with his chase price shortly subsiding to season-low charges by the tip of the 12 months:

Jones’ success will all the time be met with some stage of scrutiny due to the place he performs, however he hit higher on the highway than he did at Coors Field, posting a .288/.380/.554 line with a 148 wRC+ in highway video games and a .306/.398/.530 with a 122 wRC+ in Colorado. He dealt with each righties and lefties, posting a 137 wRC+ vs. righties and a 130 wRC+ in opposition to same-handed pitchers. There was little that gave him hassle, except for a three-week hunch in July that he shook off with a powerful August and a torrential September:

Now, it was a season the place all the pieces went proper — and as nice as that was for Jones in 2023, it does recommend some regression could also be in retailer for 2024. Among gamers with 400 or extra plate appearances, Jones’ .401 BABIP was the very highest within the league, 35% increased than the league common. He ranked fifteenth in baseball with a 22.2% HR/FB ratio, practically 10 share factors increased than the league price. And his .395 wOBA properly outperformed his .360 xwOBA, although a .360 xwOBA is nothing to sneeze at (he was nearly tied with José Ramírez). All of this alerts some stage of luck-fueled overperformance in 2023, however Jones had a powerful sufficient season that even with some regression, he could possibly be fairly a powerful performer in 2024 and past. Particularly if he can proceed to have such good management over the perimeters of the plate.

Sure sufficient, Dan Szymborski’s ZiPS projection system has Jones slashing .277/.368/.488 with a .367 wOBA and three.1 WAR in 552 plate appearances in 2024, a modest regression however a season that might make for a good sophomore marketing campaign. ZiPS’ Eightieth-percentile projections offers us a glimpse of what a step ahead may seem like: .304/.394/.543 with a 139 OPS+ and 4.3 WAR. The Twentieth-percentile projection, in the meantime, gives the cautionary story of a sophomore flop: .248/.340/.434 with a 101 OPS+ and 1.7 WAR.

Perhaps the most important win from Jones’ 2023 marketing campaign, his first in Colorado, was that he’s performed greater than sufficient to earn himself a beginning job in 2024; well being allowing, the approaching 12 months will give him a shot to get his first full season below his belt. He was a stronger outfielder than anticipated in 2023, giving him a surefire spot in a nook heading into this season and providing some positional certainty for the primary time in his profession. Whether he can duplicate his freshman season stays to be seen, however one factor we all know: In Colorado, it’s all about Nolan as soon as once more.