North Shore Nine

Welcome to the weekly Scouting Prospects; The Top 30 series. Each week we will take a look at a different one of the Pirates Top 30 prospects, with a few bonus “double drop” weeks. The format of these articles will highlight and discuss the following.

• Scouting Score
• Performance
• Expectations
• Projected Debut
  
  When it comes to scouting grades, the scale used is 20-80. So, a 20-30 grade would be considered well below average. A 40 is below average, 50 is average, 60 is above average (Also called Plus) and 70-80 is well above average (or Plus Plus). For prospects the overall grade is where scouts expect the player to perform once in the majors. For example, a 65 grade would be an All-Star caliber standout player, whereas a 50 would be an everyday player and a 40 would be a bench player.

Jared Jones:

Jared Jones was taken in the 2020 draft by the Pittsburgh Pirates with an over slot deal keeping him from going to Texas. To start the 2024 season he ranked as the Pirates 3rd best prospect and the 56th best in all of baseball. Scouts have always been high on his fastball, as well as a good slider and curveball. Furthermore, they all comment on his maturity on the mound, not letting his emotions take over. All very good things for a 6’1″ power pitcher to have when bearing down on big league batters. While his scouting grades don’t compare to Paul Skenes, and few do, they are still good.

He is graded with a plus fastball, above average slider and curveball with an average changeup. Slightly below average control and between a everyday player and an All-Star. Scouts also state that he is more of a control than a command pitchers at this point. He did not rank in the Top 10 of RH pitching prospects in the run up to the 2024 season, though that might have changed if the lists were redone. It is also a good climb for Jones, who was 11th on the Pirates top 30 last year , and 12th the year before. But all of this becomes a moot point when his performance is looked at, both in the spring and in the Majors this year.

In ST Jones was downright impressive, he pitched 16.1 innings not giving up an earned run striking out 15 and walking 8. A very impressive start, and good enough to earn him the 3rd spot in the Pirates rotation out of the gate. What he has done since the season started has been nothing short of nearly legendary. In his first 7 starts in the majors he is 2-3 with a 2.63 ERA he has a .78 WHIP and has struck out 52 opposed to 5 walks. He has done all of this over the span of 41 innings. He is on a few All-Time lists already, with number of games with 7+ strikeouts thrown as well as with Whiffs generated. His five starts in a row to start a career with 7+ strikeouts ties Jose Deleon for the MLB record. Furthermore, he has a 11.4 SO/9 and a 10.40 So/W ratio, he has been nothing short of amazing from the rubber. So far in the spring and in the regular season the performance has been next level, but what can be expected continuing forward.

It is impossible to expect that Jones could pitch any better than he currently is. Every game he has gone into has been against a better lineup than the game before yet he puts up the same performance time in and time out. Fan could realistically expect an occasional bad start as the season wears on. However, based on everything shown so far expectations remain high for this young man. There is not a part of his game that has be identified could be an issue. The only thing that lurks potentially there is walks and how he deals with runners on base. But all in all, things are looking very good for Jared Jones, and fans should expect that to continue.