OT: Jacoby Jones- How is this turd still playing on a pro team?

Submitted by Champeen on May 1st, 2019 at 9:59 AM

In his 4th year of playing baseball,......

he is batting .194 (.137 this year)
OBP of .254 (.214 this year)
Slugging .330 (.216 this year)

I used to be hard on Brandon Inge at the plate, but this guy makes Brandon Inge look like Babe Ruth.  This guy fucking sucks!  How is he not only sticking in the league, but starting?!?!?!?!

Tigers pitching in 2 years will be one of the best rotations in baseball.  They need to badly fix the bats though.

NeverPunt

May 1st, 2019 at 10:05 AM ^

Ya - dude is not a hitter. Career .194 BA. Granted the sample size is still relatively small as he only played in 69 games his first two years, but last year he had BA of .207 and is not exactly lighing it up this year.

93Grad

May 1st, 2019 at 5:36 PM ^

They have a handful that can hit, but none of them with any real power which is the bigger problem.  Cameron, Paredes, Castro and Clemens all have decent hit tools but the power is non existent throughout the minor leagues.  Thankfully it’s cheaper than ever to buy power on the free agent market.  

ckersh74

May 1st, 2019 at 8:10 PM ^

This. You can buy bats a hell of a lot cheaper than you can buy arms. And it's a whole lot easier to trade an arm for a bat than the other way around. 

As for our pitching prospects, out of Faedo-Manning-Burrowes-Mize, among others, I'm not so sure that we're going to have an overflow of pitching in a couple years. A former GM used to say on MLB Radio: For every rotation arm you want, you'd better plan on drafting three. One is going to pan out. One is going to get hurt. One is going to bomb. For the most part, that seems to make sense. 

Naked Bootlegger

May 1st, 2019 at 10:07 AM ^

But it's his defense!   

At this point, he's merely a placeholder for Daz Cameron.  

/Checks Cameron's Toledo stats

/Confirms that he's hitting .195

/Shrugs 

But it begs the question of how long the Tigers let Jones continue to produce meager offensive numbers and pray that his defense more than offsets a .216 slugging percentage.

Champeen

May 1st, 2019 at 10:15 AM ^

although i get this (no one better) - how can you not find anyone in AAA better than a .200 batting average?  Hell, there has to be a guy that only bats .200 but maybe walks/steals a lot? (much higher OBP?).

if your a lifetime under .200 batter, how the hell can you start on a pro team in your 4th year.

I find it almost impossible to believe the Tigers triple A club doesnt have at least 1 guy that bad!

Naked Bootlegger

May 1st, 2019 at 10:30 AM ^

I was hoping either Derek Hill or Cameron would be ready to take over CF by now.   Cameron, while hitting only .195 at Toledo, is still probably an offensive upgrade over Jones based on his secondary stats.    Hill initially struggled in the minors, then had the unfortunate elbow injury that cost him an entire year.   He's hitting .289 at Erie - would be great if he turned the corner this year.   Both Hill and Cameron offer similar athletic abilities as Jones with plus defensive profiles, so Jones' clock has to be ticking loudly right now.  

Robbie Moore

May 1st, 2019 at 11:37 AM ^

Casey Mize sure looks like someone who can handle that vast jump. His circumstances feel a lot like Verlander's. JV jumped to MLB from Double A. He was picked second overall. His calling card was/is the upper 90's heat. Mize is the splitter. Regardless, they both came on the scene with three plus pitches and one exceptional one.

So, trivia for you MgoBloggers. JV was drafted second overall in 2004. Who went first?

MgoKY

May 1st, 2019 at 7:45 PM ^

I read  a story about Matt Bush awhile back, how talented he was, and why a comeback happened years later.  Never regained what they thought he had as a prospect, but interesting story.  Honestly, the fact he went ahead of Verlander was the only reason I checked it out.

Night_King

May 1st, 2019 at 10:27 AM ^

My point was, it is better to be one of the WORST teams in the league for a few more years than to be middle of the pack. I don't want the Tigers to follow the Pistons model. 

The Wings/Tigers are in better positions for the future if they can continue to shed big contracts from the older players are build the foundation of the team with young gems. 

Space Coyote

May 1st, 2019 at 10:25 AM ^

Haven't watched the Tigers this year, but their batting stats are a bit sad.

On the upside, they have 5-6 regulars (depending on what you consider that) with a OBP over .313, which is 120th in the MLB, (which, with 30 teams, basically makes them better than average in OBP for the top half of the batting order). But their best regular is only .367 (51st), their 3rd best regular is .330 (120), meaning the actual top third of the lineup is pretty awful. To add to that, they have some serious anchors with up to 4 regulars with an OBP less than .277 and two at .214 or below, which are easily among the worst of the regulars. In 27 games, the player with the max HR is 3, which is awful in today's game. They only have 20 HRs as a team.

All this equals a team that could have some good middle of the lineup pieces already in place, and with the replacement of some anchors could actually be pretty average overall. But they need to basically find some top of the batting order and bottom of the batting order replacements pretty badly.

umchicago

May 1st, 2019 at 11:50 AM ^

this is precisely why i agree with the dombrowski (and now avila) draft strategy.  GET ARMS.  get solid young arms in the rotation.  they are much cheaper. 

spend the big bucks on bats.  if a hitter gets injured, he can still be functional.  if a pitcher gets hurt, he's toast.  you get nothing.

the tigers have a lot of good arms now in the minors.  hit on 3 of them, and they are looking good in a couple years on the mound.

plus, they still have some good chips to trade this year; castellanos and the ever-improving boyd.

Bodogblog

May 1st, 2019 at 10:27 AM ^

How does he compare to other catchers around the league, isn't that the real question.  I don't watch baseball much anymore, but catchers by and large have always sucked at the plate.