Adam Jones - Asleep On the Job

If you take a look at Adam Jones' Yahoo profile picture, it looks like he is mired in a disgruntled sleep. Besides falling asleep for photo shoots, Jones also appears to have developed a habit of falling asleep at the plate, which leaves the Orioles and the 8.9% of people that own him (espn leagues) disgruntled. Let's take a closer look at Adam LaMarque Jones' numbers to see if his vomit-inducing line of .274/.362/.636 will stick around.

Keep in mind that Jones is only 22 years old and is playing in his first full season, and therefore we will also be checking into his minor league numbers. Right now his BB% is a laughable 4.9%. It's incredibly difficult for a hitter to succeed with a 4.9 BB%, just ask Juan Pierre. I checked out Fangraph's newly added plate discipline stats to see what is happening during Jones' at bats. What jumps out after reviewing the data is that Jones is swinging at 52.5% of his pitches, a significant increase over the league average of 45.9%. Well, if your gonna swing at more pitches, you better make contact with more pitches. So far that is not the case as Jones is making contact when swinging 76.6% of the time, (compared to 80.8% lg avg) and when he's swinging at a pitch in the strike zone he's making contact a mere 81.3% of the time (88.2% lg avg). Clearly, Jones needs to change something with his plate approach because so far it is not working in the majors.

However in AAA last year, it was a completely different story. Jones had an eye-popping line of .382/.586/.968. He did have a low BB% last year as well, 7.9%, so obviously Jones is a Vlad Guerrero-type-free-swinger, but the difference between last year in triple-A and this year in the majors is that Jones actually hit the ball last year, and he hit it hard too.

Lastly I checked Jones' BABIP and LD% to see if he has been getting unlucky this season, and both were basically league average so Jones cannot blame luck for his troubles. Too bad, cause that would make things so much easier.

As far as your fantasy team is concerned, I think Adam Jones can remain a free agent unless your in one of those few leagues where he is owned. Still, I believe Jones to be a talented, young prospect who may just be going through adjustment issues. I'd keep an eye (and possibly an ear) turned towards Jones' direction for any signs of life, in which case I would seriously consider adding him depending on my outfield situation.

In the meantime, somebody tell him to WAKE UP!!!