Adam Jones and the new Orioles philosphy

[NashLumber]

3 hours ago, Ohfan67 said:

Yeah. No “I’m a good soldier, I’ll do what’s best for the team.”  Adam needs to rewatch Bull Durham. 

Or enjoy the game from the bench. I don't think "my way or the highway" usually ends well when it's coming from the player, especially one joining a new team. 

[OsFanSinceThe80s]

11 minutes ago, NashLumber said:

Or enjoy the game from the bench. I don't think "my way or the highway" usually ends well when it's coming from the player, especially one joining a new team. 

 

[Frobby]

12 hours ago, Can_of_corn said:

His attitude is probably part of the reason for the lack of interest.

This quote makes me glad we weren’t tempted to bring him back.   Ridiculously stubborn.  

[webbrick2010]

I wonder if he makes it thru the season.

[milbest77]

This is the “Buck Effect.” It’ll wear off by June when he’s platooning in RF, if not DFA’d. 

[Tony-OH]

2 hours ago, Frobby said:

This quote makes me glad we weren’t tempted to bring him back.   Ridiculously stubborn.  

I've gotten hammered here and on twitter for any veiled, or sometime less than veiled comments I've made about Jones' attitude. It all culminated with his refusal to be traded last year to a contender when he invoked his 10/5 status to stay with an awful Orioles team that wanted to free up some playing time for some minor league players while giving him a chance for the post season. 

I'm not surprised at all by his comments or his stubbornness to do things his way vs what his coaches and organization think is best. There's a reason he could only find a 1/$3 million contract this offseason. 

[Tony-OH]

1 hour ago, milbest77 said:

This is the “Buck Effect.” It’ll wear off by June when he’s platooning in RF, if not DFA’d. 

Not sure I under the "Buck effect" here. Buck was slow in moving him from center, but in Buck's defense, who else did he have available to play center? Also, Buck did bench him down the stretch last season.

[Luke-OH]

This is hubris, by admitting that data can help his defense, he'd also be admitting that he believes the defensive metrics that have said he was terrible in CF recently, and I imagine that's difficult for him to do.

Hopefully he opens his mind if he wants to continue his playing career any significant amount of time.

Attitude is often a two-edged sword, the attitude that made him a great player and a fan favorite is likely hurting him now. He's far from the only baseball person to get left behind by the modern game due to unwillingness to change though. For every player with this attitude, there are multiple coaches, scouts, player development guys who think the same way and are worse off for it. 

[Legend_Of_Joey]

15 minutes ago, Tony-OH said:

I've gotten hammered here and on twitter for any veiled, or sometime less than veiled comments I've made about Jones' attitude. It all culminated with his refusal to be traded last year to a contender when he invoked his 10/5 status to stay with an awful Orioles team that wanted to free up some playing time for some minor league players while giving him a chance for the post season. 

I'm not surprised at all by his comments or his stubbornness to do things his way vs what his coaches and organization think is best. There's a reason he could only find a 1/$3 million contract this offseason. 

People are blinded by their fondness for him.

[ShaneDawg85]

20 minutes ago, Tony-OH said:

I've gotten hammered here and on twitter for any veiled, or sometime less than veiled comments I've made about Jones' attitude. It all culminated with his refusal to be traded last year to a contender when he invoked his 10/5 status to stay with an awful Orioles team that wanted to free up some playing time for some minor league players while giving him a chance for the post season. 

I'm not surprised at all by his comments or his stubbornness to do things his way vs what his coaches and organization think is best. There's a reason he could only find a 1/$3 million contract this offseason. 

Tony, you summarized my thoughts perfectly.  Stubbornness isn't necessarily a bad thing, plenty of great players have had stubborn streaks.  Cal had it, Frank Robinson had it, it's both endearing and frustrating all at the same time.  But, with Adam I can't help but feel his stubbornness ended up more of a detriment than a positive attribute.  In the past he blew off both people saying he needed a more disciplined approach, and to play a deeper center field, and this was before his range started to go down hill.  The trade deadline last year was the nail in the coffin.  Instead of doing what next to everyone else would do and accept a trade to a better team, Adam nixed, pretty much because he felt that he could because of reasons and make it look like a borderline case of martyrdom.  As for any argument about family, I call BS.  It was for a couple of months, and Philadelphia was not a significant sacrifice to make for a couple of months.

I love Adam Jones and will always appreciate what he did here.  But, he's done himself no favors whatsoever with his comments, and it honestly doesn't even really matter to me to some extent how Mullins or anybody else does trying to fill his spot.  Simply getting that attitude off of the team to me is a step in the right direction.

[TonySoprano]

Quote

If Jones played deeper his last two years in Baltimore by team fiat, the Diamondbacks don’t seem to be taking that tack. They are sensitive to what makes Jones the most comfortable. “There’s obviously a balance between playing in a certain spot and being very comfortable reading balls off the bat in a certain spot,” Hazen said.

Added Lovullo: “We don’t want to coach the instincts out of a player.”

But they’ll still make the case for Jones backing up a bit.

Quote

In 2016, when Jones played shallower than any center fielder in baseball, he was worth minus-10 DRS and had a UZR of minus-5.6. He had rated positively in both categories the year before. But after moving back the next two seasons, he got worse in both metrics.

Year	Average Start Point	Ultimate Zone Rating	Defensive Runs Saved
2016	303	-5.6	-10
2017	319	-14.4	-12
2018	316	-14.8	-18

That would seem to suggest that moving back was the wrong move, but it doesn’t account for the effects of aging. Though Jones doesn’t think he’s declined physically – “I’ve still got the same sprint speed since I was 26,” he said – Statcast disagrees. In 2016, he topped out at sprint speed of 28 feet per second, ranking him 150^th out of 549 players. But he’s lost a significant amount of foot speed – and thus range – since then.

Year	Age	Sprint Speed	MLB Rank
2016	30	28.0 feet per second	150th
2017	31	27.1 feet per second	305th
2018	32	26.7 feet per second	339th

Quote

The Diamondbacks will attempt to balance keeping Jones comfortable and not smothering him in advanced metrics while also boosting his performance according to those very measures. Now that he’s away from the Orioles – a team that, until this winter’s regime change, had the reputation for lagging far behind its competition when it came to analytics – the question of how much poor defensive positioning affected Jones’ metrics may finally be answered.

 

[Frobby]

Jones has always been stubborn, and one of those guys who feels he knows what got him to the big leagues and all star games and nobody’s going to change that.   And, for a very long time, he was good enough that he was worth playing every day despite his stubborn streak.    But now his skills have eroded somewhat and he seems to be in denial.    It’s too bad.    I still wish him all the success in the world, but I think his stubborn streak may well prevent him from maximizing the rest of his career.    I hope I’m wrong about that.

I don’t relate his refusal of the Phillies trade to his stubbornness  He decided that situation wasn’t best for him, and he was entitled to decide that for himself, based on his own priorities.

 

 

[Luke-OH]

15 minutes ago, Frobby said:

Jones has always been stubborn, and one of those guys who feels he knows what got him to the big leagues and all star games and nobody’s going to change that.   And, for a very long time, he was good enough that he was worth playing every day despite his stubborn streak.    But now his skills have eroded somewhat and he seems to be in denial.    It’s too bad.    I still wish him all the success in the world, but I think his stubborn streak may well prevent him from maximizing the rest of his career.    I hope I’m wrong about that.

I don’t relate his refusal of the Phillies trade to his stubbornness  He decided that situation wasn’t best for him, and he was entitled to decide that for himself, based on his own priorities.

 

 

Yeah, I have no problem with the trade refusal. It was part of his CBA-negotiated rights that he earned.  

[esmd]

1 hour ago, Luke-OH said:

This is hubris, by admitting that data can help his defense, he'd also be admitting that he believes the defensive metrics that have said he was terrible in CF recently, and I imagine that's difficult for him to do.

Hopefully he opens his mind if he wants to continue his playing career any significant amount of time.

Attitude is often a two-edged sword, the attitude that made him a great player and a fan favorite is likely hurting him now. He's far from the only baseball person to get left behind by the modern game due to unwillingness to change though. For every player with this attitude, there are multiple coaches, scouts, player development guys who think the same way and are worse off for it. 

Agreed - when he was in his prime and a driving force in the locker room, it was an asset, both for him personally and for the team.  But at this point, it's a detriment, IMO.  I hope he's able to evolve and realize the wisdom of taking constructive input to help him stay productive and relevant as a MLB player.

[interloper]

None of this makes Jones a bad guy. Just wanted to say that. He's a very Good guy. 

He's a frustrating baseball player. 

No reason to not separate the two.