Adam Jones Pulls in Big Pay Day

Adam Jones is enjoying an MVP-caliber season for the first-place Baltimore Orioles, and the O's are now poised to give the 26-year-old a six-year contract extension in the range of $85 million. 

A perennial breakout pick who frustrated many by not making the most of his 6-foot-3, 225 pound frame at the plate (he averaged 18 homers and a 104 OPS+ during his first four years in Baltimore), Jones has finally tapped into the power that made him a top prospect in the Mariners' farm system. His 14 homers are tied for second in the majors, and his 161 OPS+ ranks in the top 20. Jones is about to pull in a lot of cash because he's pulling the ball more often and with more authority.

Jones' pull percentage has climbed considerably in 2012, from under 45 percent during his four decent seasons with the O's to nearly 57 percent:

Jones' Spray Splits

Year	Pull	Center	Opposite
2008-11	44.6	33.6	21.8
2012	56.6	29	14.4

Pulling the ball more often is usually a good thing for a hitter. Righties have a .559 slugging percentage when pulling the ball this season, compared to .479 to center field and .458 to the opposite side. The extra pulled pitches have definitely been a positive for Jones, as his slugging percentage to the pull side has soared by over 250 points:

Jones' slugging percentage by side of field

Year	Pull	Center	Opposite
2008-11	.660	.454	.528
2012	.912	.571	.571

Jones has the eighth-highest slugging percentage on pulled pitches among righty hitters, sandwiched between Edwin Encarnacion and Ryan Braun. Eleven of Jones' homers have been ripped down the left field line.

While Jones still isn't drawing many walks, he has shown slightly better plate discipline this season (35 percent chase rate, compared to 39 percent from 2008-11) and his list of comparable players on Baseball-Reference through age 25 includes the likes of Dave Winfield, Reggie Smith, Andre Dawson, Dwight Evans and Sammy Sosa. It's too early to say that Jones is Matt Kemp sans stolen bases, but this deal looks fair if he contributes three to four Wins Above Replacement per year. It's a steal if he remains one of the game's great pull hitters.

A-Gon Punchless vs. Outside Pitches

The Boston Red Sox traded a trio of well-regard prospects prior to the 2011 season to get Adrian Gonzalez's bat from the Padres and then signed the franchise first baseman to a seven-year, $154 contract extension. Gonzalez rewarded his new club with 27 homers, a .548 slugging percentage and a 155 OPS+ as the Sox paced the majors in runs scored. Boston still has a quality offense in 2012 despite an avalanche of injuries (third in runs scored). But, as the Boston Herald's Scott Lauber says, Gonzalez's power production is gonzo:

Adrian Gonzalez knows what you’re thinking.

Through 44 games and nearly 200 plate appearances, he has hit three home runs — one fewer than outfielder Daniel Nava, who was called up by the Red Sox [team stats] only three weeks ago. He’s also slugging .406, a lower percentage than even spray-hitting Kansas City Royals shortstop Alcides Escobar (.422) or Chicago White Sox leadoff man Alejandro De Aza (.417).

Yo Adrian, where has your power gone?

Gonzalez's OPS+ is just 101 this year, a far cry from his career 138 mark. Where has Adrian's power gone? The answer lies on the outside corner of the plate.

During his first year in Boston, Gonzalez was one of the best hitters in the game in terms of thumping pitches thrown away. Look at his slugging percentage on outside pitches, and then the average for lefty batters:

Gonzalez's slugging percentage vs. pitches thrown away, 2011

Average slugging percentage for lefty hitters vs. pitches thrown away

Gonzalez slugged .518 against pitches thrown away in 2011, the fourth-highest clip among lefty batters and 130 points above the big league average. With 12 homers on pitches thrown away, Gonzalez trailed just Curtis Granderson, Ryan Howard, Carlos Santana, Carlos Pena and Jay Bruce among those swinging from the left side.  

In 2012, though? Gonzalez's heat map is ice cold on away pitches:

Gonzalez's slugging percentage vs. pitches thrown away, 2012

Adrian hasn't hit a single homer on a pitch thrown away, and his .238 slugging percentage is eighth-worst among qualified lefty batters. Gonzalez is renowned for lacing outside pitches to the opposite field, and he dented or cleared the Green Monster often on pitches thrown away in 2011...

Gonzalez's spray chart vs. outside pitches, 2011

So far in 2012, however, he's hitting singles and weak fly outs:

Gonzalez's spray chart vs. outside pitches, 2012

With Boston's outfield decimated (Gonzalez has played right field recently in interleague games), the Sox need their first baseman to find his power stroke. To do that, he'll have to get reacquainted with the Monster.

The Emergence of Edwin Jackson (Finally)

Edwin Jackson has had what some might call an up-and-down career to this point. At times tantalizing, at times infuriating, the right-hander has pitched for six different teams over the last five years, with an ERA bouncing back and forth between the mid-fours and mid-threes. A look at his skill independent ERA (SIERA) though, indicates that he pitched at about replacement level from 2007 to 2008, before going on to perform at about league average from 2009 to 2011. This brings us to 2012. Today, Edwin Jackson is no longer a kid filled with the luster of youthful potential- he is 28 years old- but he seems to finally be rising to those lofty expectations that fans probably gave up on a couple of years ago. Jackson is posting the best strikeout and walk rates of his career, and with a 3.13 SIERA, looks to be emerging as one of the better arms in the National League.

So what is Jackson doing differently? Well, his fastball velocity is a little lower than normal, his pitch selection is not radically different, and he’s hitting the strike zone at the same rate as in years past, so we can rule out these factors as explanations for his improved performance. The major difference this year that jumps out from Jackson’s profile is a marked rise in swinging strike rate. After hovering around 10% over the last three years, Jackson shot up this season to an elite 13.1%, second among all qualifying starters. The ability to induce more swing-and-misses explains Jackson’s uptick in performance, but this is not the end of our investigation. The more important issue is how Jackson is suddenly getting all of these swinging strikes.

Batters are swinging at the same rate of Jackson’s pitches both inside and outside the zone and making contact at the same rate on pitches inside the zone as they always have. The difference this year is their ability to make contact outside of the zone. After allowing contact rates around 60% outside of the zone since 2009, Jackson is surrendering contact only 43.3% of the time on would-be balls.

Season	Team	Swing% Outside Zone	Swing% Inside Zone	Contact% Outside Zone	Contact% Inside Zone	%Pitches Inside Zone	Swinging Strike %
2009	Tigers	27.2%	71.0%	57.9%	88.0%	48.1%	9.8%
2010	2 Teams	29.5%	68.2%	55.9%	87.7%	46.6%	10.4%
2011	2 Teams	30.5%	68.4%	64.3%	88.3%	46.5%	9.2%
2012	Nats	31.6%	69.3%	43.3%	88.1%	46.2%	13.1%

A big reason for this fall in contact rate is Jackson’s improvement in locating the ball outside of the zone. He has done a much better job this year of keeping the ball down and away than he did earlier in his career:

Pitches Outside of Strike Zone
Time Period	Up%	Down%	In%	Away%
2012	22.6%	60.8%	28.8%	58.9%
2009-2011	31.8%	53.0%	32.7%	50.6%

When Jackson does keep the ball down, hitters have a much harder time making contact. (This is not unique to Jackson- on average, all pitchers do a better job avoiding contact on balls below the zone than balls above the zone.) The graphic below shows the stark contrast in contact rates for Jackson below the zone and above or on the sides of the zone.

Hitters have always had trouble with getting bat to ball on Jackson on pitches low and away. Now that Jackson is hitting those spots more often, he is allowing less contact overall. Not only are hitters missing more often, but when they do make contact it is much weaker. On pitches outside the strike zone that are put into play, Jackson is getting more ground balls and allowing almost no line drives.

Pitches Outside of Strike Zone
Time Period	Groundball%	Fly Ball%	Line Drive%
2012	75.0%	20.8%	4.2%
2009-2011	59.7%	23.4%	16.8%

This new batted-ball profile might help to explain why Jackson has a .245 batting average on balls in play (BABIP) after posting a higher than average BABIP throughout the early portion of his career. Jackson’s drawing of weaker contact outside the zone indicates that what some would call a “lucky” BABIP is not completely a result of random variation or external factors, but is at least partly a result of weaker contact stemming from better location.

If Jackson starts missing high again all of these improvements could go out the window. But if he continues to keep the ball down he should be able to sustain a high swinging strike rate and continue inducing weaker contact. The baseball world has seen many flashes of Edwin Jackson's ace potential. This time he could be here to stay.