THE BOOK--Playing The Percentages In Baseball

Dave’s list of comparables based on swing rate and age isn’t all that kind to Jones. By age 25, every one of his “future stars” either had a notably better season (I’ll define that as around +10 wRC over around 500 PA in a singe season) than Jones’ best (his age 25 season) OR provided significant value other than with the bat.  Brandon Phillips, for instance, has only had a better season with the bat last year (age 29) but his value is largely tied up in his defense.  Phillips’ bat with Jones’ position/defense would essentially be what Jones already is - a slightly above average regular.

Of Dave’s “quality regulars,” every one had a breakout-type season by or at age 25.

The “free-swinging kid” skill set can definitely work, but when it’s going to really pan out there seems to almost always be a good indication of it in the majors at an age below Jones’ current 26.  Dave’s point about the value of a young free-swinger being tied up in his future value instead of his past performance only seems to hold if there is, in fact, at least some demonstration of performance in the past.

It’s an interesting article but raises more questions than it answers.  Do free swingers and/or very athletic players typically age differently?  How common is it for guys to take a big leap forward after 2500 ABs?

My intuition based on decades of fandom (and watching Adam Jones quite a bit) is that WYSIWYG with Adam Jones.....

I had similar comments as you two.

At this point you stop looking for that breakout 6WAR season and just acknowledge that he’s about a 3 WAR player.

At FG I said the only way he gets a major season is if he has a “Mauer Year” where he basically sets career bests in everything including BABIP, HR/FB and UZR.

I looked at players that had 6.5-8.5 rWAR with > 1500 PA from 23-25 since 1993. There were 9 players; Erstad, Damon, Rollins, Furcal, Castillo, Renteria, Crisp, Casey, Guzman. They average 7.5 rWAR from 23-25, an exact match for Adam Jones. They average 9.1 WAR from 26-28, which lines up nicely with the 3 WAR projection for Jones. Of the 27 individual seasons, there were six at 5.9 WAR or higher (22%)including two from Erstad. Five of these player improved their WAR/yr by over 1 and three improved by over 1.8. The biggest improvement was from Erstad going from 2.4 WAR to 5.2 WAR. The biggest drop was from Christian Guzman going from 2.2 to 0.