Mariners Draft Profile: Vanderbilt OF Spencer Jones
Vanderbilt outfielder Spencer Jones is an outlier athlete. Standing at 6-foot-7, Jones is comparable in height to Yankees outfielder Aaron Judge, albeit 50 pounds lighter. Like Judge, Jones has elite lower-half explosiveness, meaning that he can throw hard and put up monstrous exit velocities.
At Vanderbilt this year, Jones hit a ball 119 MPH (!!!) and also put 22 baseballs in play this spring with exit velocities higher than 110 MPH. For reference: Julio Rodríguez has only 20 such batted balls this season. In fact, 45 percent of the balls Jones put in play this year were over 100 MPH.
Even on fly balls (balls hit between launch angles of 26-45 degrees), Jones averaged exit velocities of 99 MPH, which is something that is not very common given correlations between exit velocities and launch angles. The raw power is there, but it has yet to materialize into real game power: Jones hit only 12 home runs in 272 at-bats this year at Vanderbilt and only three in 92 ABs in the Cape Cod league. He did have a .644 slugging percentage last year, which is exceptional, but one would still like to see more over-the-wall power.
Jones hits the ball on the ground a lot, but there are ways the Mariners could work with him to create more loft. At the MLB Draft combine two weeks ago, Jones had the hardest hit ball at 112.2 MPH (with a wood bat). It might be fair to say he has the best raw power in this entire draft class.
He also has above-average plate discipline skills, posting an 11.8 percent walk rate and a palatable 23.5 percent strikeout rate. Being that tall, Jones has a large strike zone to cover, so his strikeout rate might always be more than league-average.
Jones also has tapped into his top-end speed potential, meaning that his combination of power and speed is very unique, especially for someone his size. He was 14 out of 15 on stolen base attempts this past season, and there could be even more in the tank. He has recorded 10-yard and 30-yard run splits of 1.71 and 3.88 seconds, respectively. He also had the third-fastest 30-yard time at the MLB combine this year.
With his speed and arm strength, Jones absolutely projects to stay at center field and, with 80-grade raw power, is probably the highest upside college player in the draft. He is currently being projected to go anywhere from picks No. 25 through 50, which means that if the Mariners select him at No. 21, they could likely sign him for less than slot value.
Jones is moving up draft boards fast and the Mariners would be shooting for the moon if they took him. But this might be their chance to pick a center field version of Pirates phenom O'Neil Cruz.
Being a collegiate player, Jones should also be on a quick timeline to reach the major leagues.
There will be fans who still argue that the Mariners do not need any more outfielders. This is a common fallacy; the Mariners need to take the best player in their eyes regardless of position, especially since they do not have a logjam in the outfield whatsoever. Mitch Haniger might be gone after this year, Kyle Lewis might not be able to consistently play in the field, Jesse Winker only has a year left under contract after 2022 and Jared Kelenic, Taylor Trammell and Dylan Moore are hardly mainstays moving forward.
The highest-rated Mariners outfield prospect above High-A ball is Zach DeLoach, who is probably only ever going to be a fourth outfield option on a good team. With an elite farm system even after the recent graduations of Rodríguez and George Kirby, the Mariners are in a position now to take chances on high-upside players like Jones, who could potentially use their elite tools to develop into elite players.
