His OBP increased from .325 to .319 to .334

What?

His OBP increased from .325 to .319 to .334

What?

It's on a 3 year upward trend with a minor bump in year 2.

I seriously doubt he'll ever be a consistently elite hitter, but he could easily have a year or two where he has a power spike and hits .305 or something and ends up with a 140 OPS+. But for the most part I think he'll be in the 115-125 range.

The Wilpons believe that Jones will show a healthy annual increase for the next several decades.

Gonfalon Bubble wins the thread.

yes

"It makes you wonder just how good the Orioles center fielder can be and how much better he can get"?

Little play-index fun. Outfielders with 2600-3600 PA by age 26, BB/PA of less than 7%. 23 names - see table here.

On average, as would be expected, these players improved their walk rate through their peak seasons, from 5.5% to 6.7%. None became prolific base-takers, but a few (Harold Baines, Sammy Sosa, Brian McRae, and Warren Cromartie) improved over the 10% threshold, and Jose Cardenal came pretty close. Most of the guys on the list didn't improve much - Jim Rice, Andre Dawson, Jeff Francoeur, Vernon Wells, Juan Gonzalez, Bill Buckner. So there's hope, but not a whole ton.

I thought there might be a correlation between power and improved walk rate - Willie Wilson and Bill Buckner had little power and little improvement in walk rate - but obviously no one hit for power like Rice and JuanGone, and for the whole sample there's no correlation at all.

I thought there might be a correlation between power and improved walk rate - Willie Wilson and Bill Buckner had little power and little improvement in walk rate - but obviously no one hit for power like Rice and JuanGone, and for the whole sample there's no correlation at all.

There is, however, a powerful correlation between zero improvement in walk rate and the inability to lay off the ######### slider low and away.

We are currently in an Adam Jones bubble.

Melewski many years ago told me with a perfectly straight face that Syd Thrift was a solid GM and really smart but people took the easy route and made fun of him.

I moved away slowly, not turning my back on him. Haven't spoken to him since.

Torii Hunter doesn't show up on the top 10 similarity scores, I think the driver of that is Torii not fully establishing himself as an everyday player until 25, while Jones has been one since 22. For ages 25-26, I don't think you can find a better match than Jones and Hunter.

Mr. Jones: your stats seem to have the momentum of a runaway freight train. Why are you so great?

It would be nice if he spelled McCutchen correctly.

Pet peeve ... it takes at least two years to have a "trend". His stats have been trending up for 2 years, not 3. Well, they might have been trending up since he was 7 years old for all I know but the article starts with stats in 2010.

If you look at Adam Jones’ offensive stats, they have been trending upward for three years now. It makes you wonder just how good the Orioles center fielder can be and how much better he can get.

Perhaps it's the lack of light in my mother's basement, but this is not what it makes me think. It makes me think Mr. Jones is just about as funky as he can be and perhaps due for some regression to his mean.

There IS correlation between isolated power and walk rate. Over the last few generations, the average walk rate (BB/PA) for different sets of isolated power (XB/TB) is:
-ISO- walk rate
0.000 07.6%
0.100 08.3%
0.200 10.2%
0.300 13.5%
In general, walk rate increases wiht ISO squared.

Guys like Sosa and BigMac and Bonds obviously drew many more BBs as their power went up.
Yes, the arrow of causality could run both ways.

Mike Trout has been getting better! Imagine how good he'll be in 2017!

It would be nice if he spelled McCutchen correctly.

It's the player who spells it incorrectly.

Don't hate the player, hate the name.

just to needle the conservatives on here cuz there are obama-mocking comments

this childish projection is what republicans do with the national debt!

Pet peeve ... it takes at least two years to have a "trend". His stats have been trending up for 2 years, not 3. Well, they might have been trending up since he was 7 years old for all I know but the article starts with stats in 2010.

heh. Go back 4 years:

.335, .325, .319, .334

then an equally plausible narrative can be "His OBP had been trending downward, but last year he arrested that fall."

just to needle the conservatives on here...

There's your mistake right there. Far as I can tell, there's only one.