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Adam Jones continues to have some of the most absurd ABs of all time


MachadOboutManny

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I'll just say this about Adam Jones' approach:

He could have taken Ball 4 in the first inning today to put runnings on the corners with two outs, but instead, he weakly hit a seeing eye grounder that barely escaped the infield to drive in his first run of the game.

I'll take AJ just the way he is, I like his aggressive approach, even if it does bite this team in the butt from time to time.

Four hits last night. I will take Jones the way he is.

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I'm not at all familiar with the subject matter, but is there any precedent for players' improving their "patience skills," though proxies like OBP or what have you, during their MLB careers? Even an absence of such evidence isn't a statement of certainty that nothing can be done.

I've done some basic queries for things like a very low walk rate through age 25 and a high walk rate the rest of their career, and there are extremely few players who fell into that category. Even fewer once you take out IBBs.

The one example that stands out is Sammy Sosa, who went from 30ish walks per full year to over 100. But that coincided with a dramatic increase in power which led to him being pitched around a lot more, and an increase in his IBB rate from a couple a year to a peak of 37.

Another is I did a search for everyone with a 3.5:1 K:BB ratio, or worse, through age 25. Basically Sammy Sosa, Willie Stargell (both multiple times) and one instance of Raul Mondesi are the only guys from that list who ever walked 75 times in a season from 26-on. Most of those were driven by a lot of IBBs.

So in general, it's quite rare to go from very poor plate discipline to good/great while holding other things roughly equal. To me it looks like the best we could hope for is Jones improving from 30-some walks a year to maybe 50.

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Whenever I start getting upset at Jones for swinging at everything, I remember that he's the 20th most valuable player over the last two years according to Fangraphs. Questionable defense and terrible patience and all. Then I stop being upset at him. It's easy!

Position player

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That "average" position ball player, looked pretty good last night, oh darn, thats right, it must have been a career game for him. :)

You keep saying this, show me a single post where someone has referred to Adam Jones as an average player.

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This is where I completely disagree. I don't think he has the talent, mostly the physical ability, the hand-eye coordination and eyesight, etc, to discern a ball down the middle from an outside slider with any consistency. He has a ton of other skills that are off the chart, but it's not "a few simple adjustments." I think it's totally ridiculous to think that he could be among the very best players in the world, if not for refusing to make a few simple adjustments.

Yet he does have the talent, physical ability, hand eye coordination and eyesight to sometimes hit balls(not just low and away) that are way out of the strike zone, and hit them hard.

I think he has necessary ability. I think he just gets too caught up in the moment and gets over anxious.

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Yet he does have the talent, physical ability, hand eye coordination and eyesight to sometimes hit balls(not just low and away) that are way out of the strike zone, and hit them hard.

I think he has necessary ability. I think he just gets too caught up in the moment and gets over anxious.

But in the end it doesn't matter. The results are that he has the ability to play center and OPS .830, but he has not been able to master plate discipline. We can argue about why, and whether he has it deep within himself to do this, but the reality is that he hasn't.

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But in the end it doesn't matter. The results are that he has the ability to play center and OPS .830, but he has not been able to master plate discipline. We can argue about why, and whether he has it deep within himself to do this, but the reality is that he hasn't.

Jones can be on my All-Time Oriole Great List as the starting CF.

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But in the end it doesn't matter. The results are that he has the ability to play center and OPS .830, but he has not been able to master plate discipline. We can argue about why, and whether he has it deep within himself to do this, but the reality is that he hasn't.

We may never know whether it matters or not. Sure, he's a very good player as he is. How good could he be if he took those awful pitches he swings at? How many pitches would he get that he could crush if pitchers knew they had to throw him a strike? For all we know, strike zone discipline may be the only thing that keeps him out of the HOF.

I do agree that its doubtful he'll ever change much.

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We may never know whether it matters or not. Sure, he's a very good player as he is. How good could he be if he took those awful pitches he swings at? How many pitches would he get that he could crush if pitchers knew they had to throw him a strike? For all we know, strike zone discipline may be the only thing that keeps him out of the HOF.

I do agree that its doubtful he'll ever change much.

I do believe he is a shoe-in for the Oriole HOF!

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We may never know whether it matters or not. Sure, he's a very good player as he is. How good could he be if he took those awful pitches he swings at? How many pitches would he get that he could crush if pitchers knew they had to throw him a strike? For all we know, strike zone discipline may be the only thing that keeps him out of the HOF.

Why does the theoretical matter except in a theoretical discussion? Yes, in some alternate dimension Adam Jones is probably a guy who had some tweak to his existence and draws 125 walks a year (and for that matter plays +20 defense in center) and his on the fast track to an inner circle slot in Cooperstown.

But that's not this universe. In this universe it's highly likely that all he'll do is maybe show some moderate growth in some areas. Almost all of a typical player's development is done by Adam's age, and almost no one does a 180 in something as fundamental as plate discipline in their late 20s.

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