James Jones: Let's Take a Closer Look

Most casual Mariners fans will smile when you mention James Jones. Jones is a rookie who was given an opportunity to play in the major leagues last month, and, frankly, he hasn't looked back. He has established himself as a top-of-the-lineup hitter, relying on hitting and speed to help his team succeed. James is young and cost-controlled. He is awesome, in certain ways. What a pleasant surprise!

Here is where I tell you that the tooth fairy isn't real: James hasn't performed very well, overall.

It is true that Jones has an above-average batting average of .280, along with 14 stolen bases (SBs). Those two things are good things. Normally, people who have high batting average, plus a lot of steals (especially when their steal rate is very high, like Jones) are valuable assets to a team. These players are typically above-average major leaguers. They are typically players who produce a lot of runs and value.

In their "First-half grades for the 2014 Seattle Mariners," the Seattle P-I said this:

James Jones, center fielder

Grade: A-

2014 stats: 51 games, .280 average, 51 hits, 6 RBIs, 0 homers, 32 strikeouts, 1 error

Jones has been a surprise rookie sensation. The speedster leads the Mariners by far with 14 stolen bases, and is averaging one hit per game. Heck, he is ranked second among Seattle's regular starters with a .280 batting average.

Batting average. Stolen bases.

Anyways, the point of this blog post is that: Jones isn't contributing a lot of value, overall.

There are three reasons why he isn't.  They are:

1. Jones rarely walks. 

2. Jones hits for almost no power.

3. Jones' defense is potentially mediocre.

Regarding point number 1, let's go back to the basics. Remember, OBP is more correlated to team wins than batting average. (By the way, SLG more correlated to wins than OBP, OPS greater than SLG, RC greater than OPS and wRC+ greater than RC.) But right now we are focusing specifically on walks and OBP. OBP is important, in the grand scheme of things.* And Jones' OBP (as of June 28th) is 0.313. That's not very good. Jones' OBP is low because, despite his solid batting average, he basically never walks. Jones' walk rate (BB%) is just 4.5%, versus an American League average of 8.1%. And remember, BB% may stabilize after just 120 Plate Appearances (PAs).  o date, Jones has 198 PAs. So, Jones may very possibly be a non-walker. That's a serious strike against him.

Okay, that's point number 1 above. Point number 2:  Power. (Or lack thereof.)

One measure of power is Slugging Percentage (SLG). Jones' SLG with the Mariners is just .344. The American League SLG this season is .397. The American League SLG among outfielders is .402. So, Jones is solidly below average in regards to power. In practice, this means the following: in 186 At-Bats (ABs), Jones has just 9 extra-base hits. That is poor.

SLG is one measure of power. Another is ISO: isolated power.** ISO = SLG - BA.

Basically, ISO asks: "at what rate did the hitter have extra-base hits, backing out(/correcting for/adjusting for) his batting average?" 

At 0.065, Jones' ISO is #215 out of 269 American League batters this season. He is barely above the 20th percentile. 

Okay, so James Jones doesn't get on base, and he doesn't hit for power. How is his defense?

Here's the deal.  The two best sources for fielding data (Fangraphs and BaseballReference.com) both give Jones below-average ratings. Fangraphs evaluates Jones at -2.7 runs worse than average and BaseballReference's Rfield rating for Jones is -5. In other words, Jones might have "saved" somewhere between 2 and 5 runs less than the average fielder at his position, so far in 2014. Jones has batted about 200 times. The average player-season consists of 600 plate appearances. So, if we multiply by three, to project linearly (-2.7 x 3 and -5 x 3), we calculate that Jones' defensive value is 8 to 15 runs worse than the average outfielder. A win approximately equals 10 runs (link), so, give or take, Jones' defense might be about one win below average.

Now, let's be clear: the sample size needed for any definitive statement of defensive value is about three player-seasons worth of data. With about 1/3rd of one season played, we can't say Jones' defense is bad.  But, we definitely cannot say it is good either.

Okay, got it:  OBP, SLG, Rfield. These are different components of James Jones. How do they weigh with the rest of Jones' performance?  Well, overall, Jones has been worth between 0.4 - 0.7 wins-above-replacement (WAR) this season (link1, link2). What does that project to, over the course of a full season? Again, Jones has played 1/3rd of a season. Multiplying by three, we can project that Jones is a +1.2 WAR and 2.1 WAR player, annually. 1.0-2.0 WAR equates to a role player. Very possibly, James Jones is a role player. Less likely, he is a solid starter, or a scrub (see previous link). It's not reasonable to think Jones will be a "Good Player" or an "All-Star" (although I hope I am wrong). So, most likely, we should think of James Jones as one of the following things:  (a) Role player.  (b) Solid starter.  (c) Scrub. 

Hmm.

Anyways, Jones shouldn't get an "A-" for his performance this year. Maybe a B-, at best. He is most likely below-average. The visible, preached-upon "batting average" and "stolen bases" statistics rate very well. But the peripheral stats - the ones that impact wins  to an even greater extent - are poor. 

Yes, Jones is young and cost-controlled. Maybe that attracts some teams. That's excellent. Perhaps the Mariners should trade him away. Let's acquire some better players for today. The Mariners are in the playoff hunt. Ignore the failures in the past. Play to win now. The Mariners can win a Wild Card spot, and they can win a Wild Card game, because they have Felix Hernandez. Let's make this happen! 

*winning is the grand scheme of things

** Isolated slugging (ISO) is an interesting statistic.  It was invented by Allan Roth and Branch Rickey in the 1950's.  Rickey was also famous for helping break the color barrier in major league baseball.