Pirates Pitcher Named Dark Horse for Cy Young Award
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PITTSBURGH — The Pittsburgh Pirates have a fantastic starting rotation heading into the 2025 season, and one pitcher could prove their might amongst the best in baseball.
Jared Jones had a solid rookie season, but 2025 may serve as a campaign where he shows his best stuff yet.
Jones finished his first full season at the MLB level with a 6-8 record, 22 starts, 4.14 ERA in 121.2 innings pitched, 39 walks to 132 strikeouts and a 1.19 WHIP.
His final game of the season came in the first game vs. the Yankees on the road, where he pitched 4.1 innings, allowing five hits, two walks, two earned runs and making seven strikeouts on 85 pitches. The Pirates would win 4-2 against the Yankees, thanks to two home runs from Bryan Reynolds.
Jones dealt with a right lat strain, that kept him out from early July to late August from pitching for the Pirates.
MLB.com ranked his teammate Paul Skenes as the favorite for National League Cy Young, but they also named Jones as the No. 5 dark horse for the award. They qualified "dark horse" as someone who didn't win a Cy Young prior, nor finished in the top 10 voting the past three seasons, 2022-24.
"Paul Skenes may be one of the Cy Young frontrunners in the NL entering 2025, but don’t forget about the other Pirates hurler who impressed as a rookie last season. That would be Jones, who arrived in the Majors looking like a clone of the Braves’ Spencer Strider, using his upper-90s four-seam fastball and power slider to give hitters fits," Thomas Harrigan wrote.
"Over his first nine starts in 2024, Jones registered a 2.89 ERA with the fourth-largest gap (27.2 percentage points) between his strikeout (30.6%) and walk rates (3.4%) among qualifying pitchers. Although his season went sideways after that, the 23-year-old’s early dominance offers reason to believe he can give Pittsburgh another Cy Young contender this year, especially if his new sinker becomes a reliable complement to his four-seamer and slider."
The Pirates took Jones in the second round of the 2020 MLB Draft out of La Mirada High School in La Mirada, Calif., near Los Angeles. Jones would chose to sign for $2.2 million over playing for Texas, who he committed to.
Jones spent the 2021 season with the Bradenton Marauders with a 3-6 record in 18 appearances and 15 starts, a 4.64 ERA in 66.0 innings pitched, with 103 strikeouts to 34 walks.
He would pitch with the Greensboro Grasshoppers at High-A in 2022 and then split time between the Altoona Curve in Double-A and the Indianapolis Indians at Triple-A
The Pirates begin their season against the Miami Marlins on the road on March 27, where Jones will likely serve as the No. 2 starter behind Skenes.
Dominic writes for Pittsburgh Pirates On SI, Pittsburgh Panthers Pn SI and also, Pittsburgh Steelers On SI. A Pittsburgh native, Dominic grew up watching Pittsburgh Sports and wrote for The Pitt News as an undergraduate at the University of Pittsburgh, covering Pitt Athletics. He would write for Pittsburgh Sports Now after college and has years of experience covering sports across Pittsburgh.