Can Garrett Jones Have A Big 2012?

The Pittsburgh Pirates are heading into another season with Garrett Jones being one of the biggest bats in their lineup. While that is largely uninspiring, I think Jones is more valuable to this team than many people give him credit for.

Chances are that Jones spends most of his time in 2012 playing first base. He will be sharing that time with Casey McGehee, at least while the Pirates give Pedro Alvarez another shot at third. I took an in depth look at that platoon a little while ago, and I discovered that a true platoon of Jones and McGehee would actually size up well to what the Pirates would get by paying a lot more for guys like Carlos Pena, Derrek Lee, or Casey Kotchman.

But for now let's take a closer look at Garrett Jones by himself...

Last year Jones hit .243/.321/.433 in 148 games. He hit 16 home runs, had a 10% walk rate and a 21.8% strikeout rate. His BABIP was a little bit low at .283 (his career average is .294) and he came in with a wOBA of .338. All-in-all that's not a season to write home about. However, a lot of those unimpressive numbers were highly influenced by his struggles against left-handed pitching. He hit .147/.181/.279 in 72 plate appearances against lefties, which is atrocious. There is no reason that Jones should be in the lineup against a left-handed pitcher, he's basically an automatic out. On the flip side of that, Jones hit .262/.346/.462 against righties (with 14 of his 16 home runs). That's not a line you want from your clean-up hitter, but I think that's pretty solid for a 5 or 6 hitter in the Pirates current situation. That line is actually lower than Jones career averages against righties (.275/.354/.483), which could show that it was just a down year for Jones (although his career sample is pretty small).

So if the Pirates can hold Jones out of the lineup against left-handed pitching (which they only face around 25% of the time), he can help this team on offense.

Jones was somewhat unlucky in 2011, although he's already 30 years old, so natural regression should be factoring in soon. I think the Pirates could get a pretty decent season from Jones in 2012 if they use him correctly. He had a WAR of 0.9 and a wOBA of .338, both of which are respectable numbers (especially for what they are paying him). Bill James projects Jones to have a .261/.325/.451 line with a .338 wOBA in 2012, which is good value. The defense isn't great and never will be, but at first base that's not going to hurt you very much.

For right now, I am convinced that the Pirates made the right decision for the future of this baseball team when they decided to not go after big name free agent first baseman and stick with Jones and McGehee for now.