Detroit Tigers Outfielder JaCoby Jones Scouting Report
Detroit Tigers Infielder/Outfielder JaCoby Jones has influenced a number of games in his short time already in the major leagues. What kind of prospect is he? Could be an overlooked guy that turns into a star?!
Who Is He?
JaCoby Jones was drafted by the Houston Astros out of high school in the 19th round, but he chose to attend college at Louisiana State. After a very productive career at LSU, Jones was taken in the 3rd round of the 2015 draft by the Pittsburgh Pirates. Jones had incredible raw athleticism, and many teams saw the upside with the bat, but they believed his tools would need plenty of refinement, and that he would need to find a permanent position defensively as he split time between center field and shortstop in college, and his natural athleticism played a possibility at shortstop, but he was very raw at both short and center. The Pirates sent him to their short-season New York-Penn League team in Jamestown, where he hit .311/.358/.459 with a home run and 3 steals in 67 plate appearances, playing 10 games in center field and 5 at shortstop.
The Pirates sent Jones to low-A West Virginia in the South Atlantic League in 2014, and he played the entire season there, hitting .288/.347/.503 with 23 home runs and 17 stolen bases. He played the entire season at shortstop, though he showed only average range and mediocre coverage of second base.
He began 2015 at Bradenteon in the high-A Florida State League where he hit .253/.313/.396 with 10 home runs and 14 stolen bases in 93 games before he was promoted to AA Altoona in the Eastern League. The Detroit Tigers acquired Jones in exchange for Joakim Soria, and the Tigers assigned Jones to their AA team in Erie. Overall in 2015, among the three teams, he hit a combined .257/.322/.415 with 16 home runs and 25 stolen bases. Detroit sent him to the Arizona Fall League to work on his defense at third base as they felt his time at shortstop was coming to a close. Jones struggled with his BB/K ratio at AFL, but he did hit .280/.333/.400 with 2 home runs and a stolen base over 54 plate appearances.
The Tigers started Jones at Erie and moved him quickly to their AAA affiliate Toledo in the International League, where he spent the majority of his 2016. Jones played most of his time in the minor leagues in 2016 in center field, but he also played 31 of his 99 games at third base as well. Overall in the minor leagues this year, he hit .257/.327/.407 with 7 home runs and 13 stolen bases along with 7 triples. The Tigers called him up to the major leagues on August 30th.
Next: Jones's scouting report
Scouting Report
Body/Basics
Jones is listed at 6’2 and 205 pounds and hits and throws right-handed. He looks right on his listed size, but his build is so athletic. Jones comes out with a very balanced stance at the plate, but he has a long swing that is predicated by a drop in his back elbow. This likely generates some good power leverage, but interestingly, his swing path is fairly level for dipping his back elbow in that way.
Jones does have very obvious strength in his legs, so when he gets good extension on his arms along with his legs in prime “release” point in the swing, the ball simply explodes off of his bat. The issue he runs into is that he has very long arms, and in those long arms, he has a long swing that he has not learned to shorten up for approach purposes. He pounds the ball into the gaps, and when he can get everything perfect, he’ll easily clear the outfield fences.
Jones certainly needs work to shorten his swing, but he’d also benefit from utilizing his blazing speed through working more line drives and ground balls as anything not hit perfectly at a fielder is really an opportunity for an infield hit with his speed out of the box.
Base Running/Fielding
Jones has incredible athleticism, looking like he could walk on right now to play college defensive back. His base running, much like his plate approach, is very raw. Some of this shows in his base stealing, as he has only been successful on 71% of his base stealing attempts, in spite of being often the fastest player on the field.
When it comes to running the bases, Jones uses his speed exceptionally well, but he hasn’t developed those great reads as a base runner to consistently take first to third on an outfield single or to challenge second to home on a slow single to the outfield. He’s certainly got the speed for it, and I’d say that on a raw 20-80 scale, his speed would be a 60-65, but his base running and base stealing would both be in the 45-55 range, depending on when you see him play.
Jones is not rangy enough or adept enough around the second base bag to be a starting shortstop, but his arm and surprisingly good reads off the bat in the outfield could allow him to play well in the outfield, whether it be in center field or a corner spot. I really see his skill set defensively playing best as a guy who plays two-three games per week at third, and three games a week in the outfield.
Video
Next: Future outlook
Future Outlook
Being the deep-level fantasy baseball player that I am, I tend to follow guys that are off the beaten path in normal fantasy, so when I saw JaCoby Jones, I immediately thought of one of my favorite fantasy finds in my tenure playing dynasty fantasy baseball, and that’s Bill Hall. Hall was a guy that the Milwaukee Brewers drafted out of high school and, like Jones, he was very raw. He took his time getting to the majors, and he also played some shortstop, some third base, and some center field in his pro career.
Hall had the exceptional athleticism that Jones also has. While some could consider Hall a cautionary tale for Jones, Hall did have an 11-year career, and while he had only one real “monster” season, in 2006, when he hit .270/.345/.553 with 35 home runs and 8 stolen bases, he was a guy who had a career 162-game average of 19 home runs and 10 stolen bases, so he was productive throughout his career. His undoing was his poor plate discipline as Hall struck out at a 26.4% rate and walked only 7.8% of the time. That sort of rate is not terribly out of line with what Jones has done in his career, but if he ends up playing in over 1,000 games, hitting over 100 career home runs, and collecting over 800 career hits as Hall did, I’d say Jones was a successful prospect.
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The Tigers will see what they have with Jones this month, and he’s already been announced as a representative of the Tigers in the Arizona Fall League, his second appearances there. He’s been announced as an outfielder for the AFL this go round, so the Tigers certainly want him to spend some time learning the outfield in more depth to likely spend 2017 in the outfield for the major league club. His showing so far with the major league club has offered plenty of excitement for the Tigers, and they’d likely want to keep his energy around.