Angels' Jahmai Jones flying high at plate

[floplag]

6 minutes ago, Angel Oracle said:

Unlike Wood and D-Mac though, Jones can use his athleticism to wreak havoc on the bases and in the field.

The CS% is a bit high (31.8%).   But he is just age 19/20.

But yeah, that BBs/Ks ratio needs to improve in time.

Both he and Hermosillo have some work to do with BBs/Ks.

yeah, i get it, but its still a work in progress is the bottom line meaning 2019 or later.  Im just not going to buy it till i see it at this point thats all, no top prospect list all works out and were banking hard on every one of these guys to be something in a few yeas when history suggests at best only half will.  I hate to be debbie downer and all, but we just dont have that kind of track record with our farm development to expect otherwise.

[GrittyVeterans]

2 hours ago, ksangel said:

So those of you who follow Jahmai Jones carefully why is his BB to K rate at 1 to 2.32?  Is that acceptable?  It is similar to McCutcheon's ratio in A+ but he lowered that ratio in majors somehow.

Is Jones having trouble with off speed pitches/curves/ sliders?

Another recent Angels "can't miss" prospect had a BB to K ratio at A+ and then AA and AAA of 1 to 3 ratio and washed out quickly at the major league level because pitchers took advantage of the holes in his swing.  We all know who that was....

Kole Calhoun had a 1 to 1.32 BB to K ratio at A+ as a comparison.

Is his BB to K rate acceptable or should he stay at in the lower minors until he improves his BB to K ratio?

Hate to see such a promising prospect be pushed up too quickly if more time in the minors would help him achieve greater success in the majors.

Calhoun was also in his age 23 season when he was in A+ ball since he had an extra 4 years of experience playing at ASU, so that matters a great deal.

Corey Seager for example had a 1 to 2.5 BB to K rate at A+ ball as a 19/20 year old for example. 

I don't think this is something to worry about quite yet. We'll see how he does next year at AA

[Stradling]

Track records at development mean a total of dick when we have an entirely new regime drafting, scouting and developing the young prospects.  

It would be the equivalent to someone assuming Jones will be incredible because of the Angels drafting and developing Mike Trout.  Or if Wood and Mathis and Macpherson turned out to be very good pros it had any bearing on Jones.  In other words nonsense.  

 

[ten ocho recon scout]

12 hours ago, Chuckster70 said:

Well technically Jones is half Asian, half black. 

So he will steal your car, then crash it?

(Sorry, old 80s joke, but i think it was puerto ricans. Cherry tomatO cherry tomAHto)

[eaterfan]

37 minutes ago, Stradling said:

Track records at development mean a total of dick when we have an entirely new regime drafting, scouting and developing the young prospects.  

It would be the equivalent to someone assuming Jones will be incredible because of the Angels drafting and developing Mike Trout.  Or if Wood and Mathis and Macpherson turned out to be very good pros it had any bearing on Jones.  In other words nonsense.  

 

I agree with that to some extent. There may be factors at play beyond evaluation and teaching development. For example playing in certain ballparks could have an effect. Playing at high altitude at home or in a spacious ballpark it a compact one could effect prospects. Even a total regime change wouldn't temple those factors. But beyond that they can effect our perceptions of these players and that matters too.

But the main thing is that lack of pitch recognition and/or plate discipline is a problem. It's not that Brandon Wood busted and was an Angel so that means Jones will too. The point they are making is that he lacked pitch recognition. He struck out a lot and we ignored it because he had a good AVG and lots of pop from the SS position. This time with Jones we are lowering expectations because we haven't been impressed with his pitch recognition skills. 

Now you can make the argument you need to be able to have good ones to hot for that high of average but my counter is look at Howie Kendrick. Compare their minor league numbers. Putting the ball in play is a more effective strategy in the minors than in the majors. If Jones suffers a similar drop because of better competition in the majors then how valuable is he? He'll be playing LF and not second base. He'll have to hit more than Kendrick to be as valuable.

This isn't to say he'll bust. I'm excited for Jones. I look up his performance nearly every day. I think he'll be a good major leaguer. This is just to say let's look at the holes in his game and see if he can improve. If he can't there are some issues. They can be overcome. Howie did it to become a really solid major leaguer. But it's no sure thing and it's harder to do.

[floplag]

1 hour ago, Stradling said:

Track records at development mean a total of dick when we have an entirely new regime drafting, scouting and developing the young prospects.  

It would be the equivalent to someone assuming Jones will be incredible because of the Angels drafting and developing Mike Trout.  Or if Wood and Mathis and Macpherson turned out to be very good pros it had any bearing on Jones.  In other words nonsense.  

 

We did not replace the entire scouting staff to my knowledge and have gone thru our second director of scouting in as many years, assuming anyone is anything till you actually see it is at best wishful thinking under the circumstances.  

I'm not suggesting they are terrible or will suck, only that they are not perfect and have issues to work out before we will know anything.   I'm taking a conservative approach to it until i have a reason to get more excited.  If that to you is nonsense, well, thats on you, to me its prudent and nonsense is assuming they will automatically be the next coming till we actually see that on the field.  

You want this to be true so badly you ignore anything even suggesting otherwise, as for me ill wait to see the proof and further advancement before i start handing out rookie of the year awards and potential MVP type player comparisons.  

[Docwaukee]

Jones bb rate is fine.  

the reason it's a tad low in IE right now is because he's on a hot streak.  Ball tends to look a bit bigger during those times and he's making it work so keep swinging.  Most good hitters will continue to bb during cold streaks.  So let's see what happens.  His k rate isn't horrible either.  

 He started the year 25/128 with 9bb and 32k through is first 32 games.  

since then he's .333/.396/.526/.922 over his last 389 plate appearances and 85 games including a promotion.  

the guy just turned 20 so he's far from the finished product let's see where this goes.  

[Stradling]

25 minutes ago, floplag said:

We did not replace the entire scouting staff to my knowledge and have gone thru our second director of scouting in as many years, assuming anyone is anything till you actually see it is at best wishful thinking under the circumstances.  

I'm not suggesting they are terrible or will suck, only that they are not perfect and have issues to work out before we will know anything.   I'm taking a conservative approach to it until i have a reason to get more excited.  If that to you is nonsense, well, thats on you, to me its prudent and nonsense is assuming they will automatically be the next coming till we actually see that on the field.  

You want this to be true so badly you ignore anything even suggesting otherwise, as for me ill wait to see the proof and further advancement before i start handing out rookie of the year awards and potential MVP type player comparisons.  

No I'm not ignoring anything.  I just refuse to look at Brandon Wood and Macpherson (who was good when he wasn't injured) and somehow correlate it to Jones.  You think we still have the same guys in the minors making the same decisions from 10 years ago?  I have no idea what Jones will become but your reason for it is horse shit.  One has nothing to do with the other, it's been 10+ years.  

[Stradling]

Also I haven't called Jones a rookie of the year or MVP candidate. 

[ten ocho recon scout]

I dont know anything about him or our other prospects. And like flop, im kind of cautious based on recent bad luck. But if this guy is at all being touted as mccutchen or howie as a low end, thats enough to be excited. Just wish he was closer to helping the big club.

[aznhockeyguy]

Baseball by far is the toughest sport to project young talent.  While this is encouraging on all fronts, let's wait a bit longer before we anoint players the next whatever star player.  Small sample sizes people.  

[floplag]

40 minutes ago, Stradling said:

No I'm not ignoring anything.  I just refuse to look at Brandon Wood and Macpherson (who was good when he wasn't injured) and somehow correlate it to Jones.  You think we still have the same guys in the minors making the same decisions from 10 years ago?  I have no idea what Jones will become but your reason for it is horse shit.  One has nothing to do with the other, it's been 10+ years.  

Please tell me where i said anything about 10 years other than pointing out or horrific history with cant miss or even top prospects not named Trout?   Would you feel better if i used the names of the recent guys most here cant wait to get rid of instead, would that change anything?   Somehow i doubt it.  

Since you clearly missed the point, its that our current regime in terms of scouting is barely a year old and this came on the heels of a predecessor that didnt even last a year and we started with literally the worst farm in the majors.  Bottom line we are still largely in flux in that regard under Eppler and those he has brought in and im not giving anyone the assumption of success till i see it.  They have yet to produce in terms of this for us.  Therefore that is a perfectly reasonable assumption to make and position to take for anyone not drinking the koolaid.         

Besides what reason have i given either way?  I haven't said he will be good or bad, only that im not passing judgement or making assumptions till i see it.  Please explain how this makes me anything other than prudent? 

[tdawg87]

This forum is becoming increasingly difficult to post on. Some of you guys literally can't find excitement in anything. 

We're in the middle of a playoff race despite having 32 pitchers on the DL and a horrific offense, and our farm is finally beginning to show signs of life after years of mediocrity, but that just isn't good enough. 

Jones may very well be the most exciting prospect we've had since Trout, but by all means let's compare him to Brandon Wood because that happened once and now we're all a bunch of beaten housewives expecting every guy to hit us and not the ball.

Fucking Christ you guys. 

[Angel Oracle]

It is pretty hard to ignore having Jones, Hermosillo, Adell, and Marsh all in the org at the same time.

It's been a while since the position player talent had that much potential.   Are there warts with each?   Doesn't every player have a wart of some kind?   Even Trout struggled on high fastballs early in his career.

We can discuss the warts, but also wax poetic at the potential.

All 4 of those aforementioned prospects, unlike Wood and D-Mac, have good to excellent athleticism to aid them.

[Inside Pitch]

18 minutes ago, Angel Oracle said:

All 4 of those aforementioned prospects, unlike Wood and D-Mac, have good to excellent athleticism to aid them.

D-mac didn't lack for athleticism AO, in fact it was his ridiculous athleticism that likely destroyed his career.   He was 6'4 240 when he finally made it to Anaheim and while he wasn't stealing bases the guy could flat out fly for someone his size -- he had a huge arm, amazing first step and an absolute mule strength wise...    He broke down in part because he was pushing his body to extremes for someone his size.

He wrongfully gets lumped in with Wood all the time -- people forget he was actually pretty good when he was up..   Injuries not a lack of talent of athleticism wrecked his career.

But seriously -- he may have been the single most athletic player in that Stoneman era...

[Angelsjunky]

Brandon Wood and Mike Trout are two very extreme polarities on the spectrum. Jones will almost certainly fall somewhere between the two, and probably quite far from both. In other words, a reasonable worse-case scenario is that he ends up becoming a solid 4th outfielder, and a reasonable best-case scenario is Andrew McCucthen, who is a great player but no Mike Trout (I know, "racist").

While it is silly to assume Jones is going to be a mega-star when he's still just 20 and playing in A+, it is even more silly not to enjoy the fact that the Angels have some promising prospects, or the sheer fun of speculating about what he might or might not become.

 

[Chuck]

1 hour ago, tdawg87 said:

This forum is becoming increasingly difficult to post on. Some of you guys literally can't find excitement in anything. 

We're in the middle of a playoff race despite having 32 pitchers on the DL and a horrific offense, and our farm is finally beginning to show signs of life after years of mediocrity, but that just isn't good enough. 

Jones may very well be the most exciting prospect we've had since Trout, but by all means let's compare him to Brandon Wood because that happened once and now we're all a bunch of beaten housewives expecting every guy to hit us and not the ball.

Fucking Christ you guys. 

There will be Negative Nancy's and Debbie Downer's no matter where you frequent at online or in person. It sucks, but it's true. 

Some people look for the negative in EVERYTHING. 

I will say that since Claude it has been 10x better here. I've received many PM's acknowledging that. Some that are now posting after just lurking since 2013. 

I agree with you that there's more positives to focus on than negatives. We're damn lucky to be vying for a playoff spot right now.

[tdawg87]

Don't get me wrong, I won't ever stop posting here. I'm just saying that there's an aura of negativity that hangs around every thread, regardless of the topic. People have a right to be negative and vent, hell I do it all the damn time, but there's a time and place for that. 

[Stradling]

I'm going to trade tdawg to the Boston Red Sox forum.  

[tdawg87]

7 minutes ago, Stradling said:

I'm going to trade tdawg to the Boston Red Sox forum.  

I would rather eat shit directly from Mike Scioscia's asshole after a sweaty lasagna dump than go anywhere near a Red Sox forum. 

[floplag]

55 minutes ago, tdawg87 said:

I would rather eat shit directly from Mike Scioscia's asshole after a sweaty lasagna dump than go anywhere near a Red Sox forum. 

i wish i could unread this...

[ettin]

3 hours ago, tdawg87 said:

This forum is becoming increasingly difficult to post on. Some of you guys literally can't find excitement in anything. 

We're in the middle of a playoff race despite having 32 pitchers on the DL and a horrific offense, and our farm is finally beginning to show signs of life after years of mediocrity, but that just isn't good enough. 

Jones may very well be the most exciting prospect we've had since Trout, but by all means let's compare him to Brandon Wood because that happened once and now we're all a bunch of beaten housewives expecting every guy to hit us and not the ball.

Fucking Christ you guys. 

It's not the post we wanted, but the one we needed.

[Chuck]

Jones got the night off tonight, in case anyone was wondering. 

[Chuck]

After hitting a .167 through his first 72 at bats, Jones is now slashing .296/.358/.464 with 13 HR and 27 SB.

Dayum son....

[Stradling]

5 minutes ago, Chuckster70 said:

Jones got the night off tonight, in case anyone was wondering. 

Brandon Wood also had the day off