2025 Fantasy Baseball: Jared Jones Profile, Preview, Predictions

Shawn Childs | Feb 23, 2025

Pittsburgh Pirates Starting Pitcher Jared Jones / Lon Horwedel-Imagn Images

Jared Jones has an elite fastball and a plus swing-and-miss slider. The next step in his development is better command, which will invite more strikeouts and fewer balls landing in the seats.

SP – Jared Jones, PIT (ADP – 138.9)

2025 Jared Jones Pitching Stats Profile / Shawn Childs

The Pirates drafted Jones in the second round of the 2020 MLB June Amateur Draft out of high school. Over four seasons in the minors, he went 13-23 with a 4.33 ERA, 1.322 WHIP, and 407 strikeouts over 326.0 innings. Coming into 2023, he had 16 games of experience at AAA (4-5 with a 4.72 ERA, 1.317 WHIP, and 99 strikeouts over 82.0 innings). His walk rate (3.8) was a liability in the minors.

Last year, Jones made the Pirates starting rotation out of spring training. He allowed three runs or fewer over his first 10 starts, leading to a 3.05 ERA, 0.966 WHIP, and 68 strikeouts over 59.0 innings and created a buzz in fantasy leagues. His growth with Pittsburgh came from a much lower strikeout rate (1.5). On the downside of his early success was 10 home runs allowed. The Tigers and Rockies banged him around in two road games over his subsequent six appearances, leading to lost command (17 walks over 32.0 innings – 4.8 per nine) and a higher ERA (4.50) and WHIP (1.375).

The Pirates placed him on the injured list in early July due to a lat issue. After three appearances back at AAA (six runs, 12 baserunners, and 16 strikeouts over 11.0 innings), Jones made six more starts for Pittsburgh, but the luster left his arm (5.87 ERA, 1.435 WHIP, and six home runs over 30.2 innings with 34 strikeouts). His walk rate (2.9) improved significantly for the year in the majors, with a winning floor in his strikeout rate (9.8 – 26.2%).

Jones pitched well at home (2.87 ERA and 73 strikeouts over 69.0 innings), but batters got the best of him on the road (5.81 ERA and 10 home runs over 52.2 innings). He allowed a high hard-high rate (44.2) against him.

His average fastball (97.4) ranked with best starters in baseball. Jones worked off a four-seamer (.220 BAA) and slider (.207 BAA) as his top two pitches while mixing in a yet-to-develop changeup (.325 BAA) and tumbling curveball (.348 BAA).

Fantasy Outlook: The recipe for success for Jones is pretty simple early in his career: get ahead in the count, allowing him to take advantage of his two-plus pitches (four-seamer/slider). Unfortunately, the lack of depth in his arsenal and inconsistency in command will lead to some disastrous outings. Temptation will lead drafters to expect more promising games in 2025. I expect WHIP risk out of the gate, and depth in games should hurt his value in wins. Exciting arm with value in strikeouts, but there will be some growing pains again this season.

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