Chris Jones - The Latest Addition to the 40-Man

Photo courtesy of Elaina Ellis / Norfolk Tides

On November 4, the Orioles added lefthanded pitcher Chris Jones to their 40-man offseason roster. On the surface, this is an odd move, because Jones spent most of 2013 at Norfolk, serving as a spot starter / long relief pitcher. His season statistics, aside from a 2.67 ERA, don't say "prospect" -  a 1.50 WHIP, a 34/47 BB/K ratio; 5.99 K/9 IP. The addition appears even more strange because the Orioles don't seem to have a need for Jones. They already have two other pitchers, T.J. McFarland and Mike Belfiore, with similar track records and skills. Jones will likely be competing with McFarland and Belfiore for McFarland's 2013 job.

But perhaps there's more to Jones than is revealed by a quick look at the numbers. Jones may be effective at getting ground balls or retiring left-handed batters. I saw thirteen of Jones' 2013 appearances, and I'll take a look at them to see if there's any indication that Jones is worth the roster spot.

Before I examine Chris Jones' Norfolk performance in some detail, two pieces of trivia. In his spot start on June 16, Jones gave up a leadoff home run to Billy Hamilton, the only run in a 1-0 Tides loss. Also, Chris Jones was the last Norfolk pitcher of 2013; he gave up the winning run in the tenth inning of a 1-0 Labor Day loss to Durham. When Rochester won its game later in the day, the Tides were eliminated from the International League playoffs.

Here are the pitching lines for the thirteen games I saw in which Jones pitched:

4/29	Toledo	1 1/3	4	3	3	0	1
5/4	Syracuse	1 2/3	4	4	1	1	0
5/15	Lehigh Valley	3	1	0	0	2	2
5/21	Durham	3	3	1	1	2	1
5/29	Scranton	2 2/3	1	1	1	3	2
6/2	Buffalo	3 2/3	4	1	1	0	1
6/16	Louisville	5	5	1	1	0	4
6/28	Columbus	3	2	0	0	0	0
7/12	Charlotte	2	0	0	0	1	2
7/21	Pawtucket	1 2/3	2	2	2	1	2
8/8	Gwinnett	2	2	0	0	1	3
8/11	Rochester	2 1/3	2	0	0	3	3
9/2	Durham	1	3	1	1	0	0

The June 16 appearance was a spot start; all the others were relief appearances. The unearned runs in the May 4 game were legitimately unearned; two runners reached base on Tides' errors in the same inning; one of those runners himself scored and another runner scored on an error that would have been the third out.

Jones was used as a long relief pitcher and a spot starter. That's a low-pressure role, although perhaps less so on a minor-league team. Because many young or rehabbing starting pitchers are kept on tight pitch counts, a starter may be removed early in a game even without the team far behind.

In these thirteen games, Jones faced 140 batters; 54 left-handers and 86 right-handers. Jones was much more effective against left-handers; .183/.259/.224 vs. .320/.381/.493. He had a more extreme platoon split than Mike Belfiore, being both more effective against left-handed batters and less effective against right-handed batters than Belfiore. This surprised me, both because I hadn't really noticed Jones' platoon split and because I didn't expect long relief pitchers to have a platoon split that extreme. 

The below table shows how the Jones' results against left-handed and right-handed batters. I have recorded the percentage of fly balls, line drives, ground balls, walks, and strikeouts against each. As usual with my hit-type breakdown, the fly ball, line drive, and ground ball percentages include both outs and hits. The table below illustrates:

	Vs. Left	Vs. Right
Fly Ball	11.1%	22.1%
Line Drive	18.5%	17.4%
Ground Ball	44.4%	37.2%
Walk	9.3%	10.5%
Strikeout	16.7%	12.8%

Jones gives up substantially more fly balls to right-handed batters than to left-handed batters; he makes up the difference by striking out more left-handed batters and getting more ground balls against left-handed batters. This increased fly-ball percentage against right-handed batters is reflected in the substantially higher slugging percentage earned by right-handed batters.

This discrepancy makes it more important to spot Jones, using him as much as possible against left-handed batters and minimizing his exposure to right-handers. That implies that he's not likely to have much success in T.J. McFarland's long relief role, in which he will be expected to see more of the batting order. He's more likely to succeed in the role of left-handed relief specialist, facing one or two tough left-handed batters in key situations.

Adding Chris Jones to the forty-man roster was a more significant move than I had originally thought. Jones would have been a minor-league free agent this offseason, and would have been an attractive signing for teams needing left-handed bullpen help. If he had been merely signed to a minor-league contract, he would have been subject to the Rule 5 draft, where again he would have made an attractive target. I think he has a real chance to help the Orioles as a left-handed relief specialist, and allows the Orioles to trade Brian Matusz or Troy Patton.