Cleveland Guardians history has conditioned me to not believe in Nolan Jones

It feels like Nolan Jones is going the way of other past top prospects in the Cleveland Guardians system.

Matt LaPorta, Andy Marte, Mike Aubrey, Alex White, Jeremy Sowers, Brady Aiken; the names of failed prospects in the Cleveland Guardians‘ history is bountiful. Arguably no worse than anyone else’s franchise, that’s for sure. When you have 100+ players in the minor leagues, you’re bound to miss on some, and hit on others. Yet, Nolan Jones feels like an Oscar Gonzalez or a Steven Kwan type, and more like a LaPorta and more recently, Bradly Zimmer type.

Jones has just made his debut for AAA-Columbus this week, after missing more than 50 games already. So far he’s hitting fine through two games, .375/.500/.375 and an OPS of .875, with three RBIs, and two walks. That is just two games though.

In 101 games in AAA-Columbus, he’s hit just .241 and has an on-base percentage of .360. Those aren’t terrible Major league numbers, but they’re pretty bad minor league stats. Think about Kwan, the man is hitting .271 and was around the .230 mark a week ago. Kwan is a great prospect but he’s struggled as all rookies do.

At one point he was hitting nearly 80 points lower on his batting average in the majors than in AAA-Columbus. If that trend happens to Nolan, that’s a sub-.200 batting average.

By no means is Jones destined to be a bust, but he’s not improving as he’s moving up through the minors, and that’s worrisome.

Nolan Jones is failing upwards in the minor leagues

I fully admit that a 23-year-old ball player is not a finished product and that at times, one’s minor league performances may be overblown. Yet, the fact that each time he moves up in competition, he hits worse, is concerning.

In Rookie Ball he hit just .257 and saw a nice increase to Lower-A where he hit .317. We can mark this as the start of the Jones-hype train. then he fell to .279 in Single-A before increasing a bit to .289 in High-A.

Then in Double-A Akron, he hit just .253 and of course, in Triple-A Columbus he’s hitting just .241. To go back to Steven Kwan, he hit .300+ in every stop in the minors, save for High-A ball, where he still hit a respectable .289.

Some players get called up simply because they’re too much of a financial asset not to promote. Jones got $2.5 million in a signing bonus when the Guardians got him and they’re looking for a return on investment.

His lack of production at the plate is magnified by the fact that the director of amateur scouting for the Cleveland Guardians, Brad Grant, outright called him a “very good hitter.” He was literally drafted to hit the ball well.

And he’s not.

He is not by any means a bust, at least not yet, but the hype for Jones has not lived up to the production and production is the only way to tell if a minor leaguer is going to be any good at the Major League level.

I’m pulling for Jones, I’ve just seen this song and dance before with “top prospects” that don’t make it to the majors or flame out when they get here. We waited for how long for Zimmer to “put it together”?

Zimmer was unimpressive in the minors save for two stings in A-Ball. Same thing with LaPorta and Bobby Bradley. It’s hard to predict who’s going to be good in the Majors but it’s not hard to predict who’s going to be bad. If you can’t compete against talent that’s not good enough or not ready enough to be in the Majors, how are you going to compete against the best in the world?

Yes, sometimes players defy their minor league production, but those are the exceptions. Stats decline as you move up, that’s the nature of the game. If you’re producing good stats regularly, however, odds are much better for you that you’ll become a major leaguer.

If they decline to the point they’re unimpressive, or worse, bad; then you’re likely not going to make it.

I’m pulling for Jones to buck the trend and ascend to the level of player he’s expected to be. That doesn’t mean I’m not concerned.