Speaking of perplexing players, Andruw Jones has fallen so far he was just released in the Fantasy Baseball Search Expert League. So even in a 12-team mixed league he is waiver bait. What has happened and is there any hope?

It is hard to believe that in 2005 Jones had 51 home runs and an expected batting average of .308. His actual batting average was only .263, and this gets to the heart of his struggles. I have heard explanations ranging from steroids to age discrepancies bandied about, but ignoring this “soft” evidence for a moment, let’s take a look at what the “hard” evidence has to say.

To start, here are his hit rates:

2007 25%
2006 27%
2005 24%
2004 30%
2003 30%

The best hitters in baseball will always, without exception, have hit rates in excess of 30%. 30% is a norm for most players, but each individual player will establish his own rate. Some factors that can result in an established rate higher than 30% are speed, and ability to hit line drives, or power, among others. 

So it is clear that even at his best Jones was never an above average hitter; he was a specimen of above average power but possibly no better than of average ability. Keep in mind what I am saying here; I am not talking about his value, or fantasy value, or comparing his stats to the norm. I am talking about his actual physical skills as an overall hitter, which may be divined from the hard evidence. His actual physical hitting skills were essentially driven by one superb skill, power.

This is borne out by his Linear Weighted Power indices, with 100 being average, which were:

2007: 123
2006: 159
2005: 180
2004: 140

So what we have here is a below average hitter with one prodigious skill, sort of the Juan Pierre of power hitters. It is hard for me to believe I just wrote that by the way. Jones has always had reasonable contact rates, generally in the 75% range, and a good eye with walk rates over 10%.

So on hard evidence there are really only two conclusions; either he is a one skilled player or he is just extremely unlucky in his hit rate for three or four years. It looks like his best days are long gone, and we should not expect a rebound to anything close to 2005 or 2006.

What happens to one-skilled players when that skill goes away? They scuffle until they are out of the game. I mentioned Mike Pagliarulo yesterday in discussing Mark Reynolds, and baseball fans from back then will no doubt remember how pathetic it was watching him scuffle around, struggling everywhere he went, and after two good years he had seven terrible ones.

I sure hope that Jones does not go through this career slope. But unless he can recover that lost power stroke it is a good possibility. He is “only” 31 so a resurgence is certainly not out of the question. And who knows if the “soft” evidence is also true?

Andruw Jones in his halcyon days