What to expect from Pirates No. 3 prospect Jones in MLB.
The Pirates have a top right-handed pitching prospect on their Opening Day roster … but it’s not the one everyone has been focusing on.
Don’t worry, Buccos fans, Paul Skenes will come soon enough. The even better news is he’s not the only really good arm at the top of the system. Jared Jones, the Pirates’ No. 3 prospect and MLB’s No. 60, will get the first look at the big league rotation, making the team after not allowing an earned run over 16 1/3 innings in Grapefruit League action.
He’ll make his first Major League start in Miami on Saturday, and it’s not an exaggeration to say that of all the top pitching prospects in this system (there are four Top 100 arms here after all), nobody has evolved as much as Jones has since joining the organization. He transformed from a “thrower” to the complete pitcher who wowed staff and fans in Bradenton this spring.
As a high school senior in 2020, Jones had a reputation as being a pure power guy, both on the mound and at the plate. He could hit homers, but it became clear that his future would be as a pitcher after blowing hitters away at showcase events, like the inaugural PDP League in the summer of 2019. It was there he told me that he tried not to overthrow (not always successfully) and liked getting strikeouts with his slider more because he liked “seeing knees buckle.”
Some things haven’t changed, though he now has two distinct breaking balls — an upper-80s sweeper and low-80s curve with depth. He can really spin both, and he’s buckled many knees with a 38 percent miss rate on his breaking stuff across Double-A and Triple-A in 2023. He featured his slider more this spring and produced a 59 percent miss rate with the pitch, albeit in a small sample size.
Some things have changed a lot. He still throws plenty hard, averaging 97 mph with his fastball in Grapefruit League action, while touching triple digits. That wasn’t a Spring Training mirage: His fastball averaged 96.2 mph, according to Synergy, in the Minors in 2023 and also topped out at 100 mph. It has high spin and high ride up in the zone. But he’s learned along the way that he doesn’t have to overthrow to miss bats. He did so at a 29 percent rate with his heater in 2023 while
commanding it better than he had previously. His strike-throwing has been on a steady progression, from walking 4.6 per nine in his first full season to 3.7 in 2022 and then 3.6 last year (3.2 in his ten Double-A starts before getting promoted to Triple-A).
Greensboro, the Pirates’ High-A affiliate, can be brutal for pitchers.
