'Just watch': Jones closes case for rotation spot

BRADENTON, Fla. -- Jared Jones looked looser walking toward his LECOM Park locker Saturday. There’s an elephant in the room for the Pirates’ No. 3 prospect on whether or not he will make the Opening Day roster next week.

It’s out of his hands now after his final spring start in Saturday's 4-1 win over the Red Sox, in which he went five innings while striking out five, allowing an unearned run and walking four. His fastball command was spottier than usual, but he got a pair of double plays and executed when needed to get out of jams.

“It was a really good bad day,” Jones said with a smile.

“We’re talking about a guy that, in probably the worst [start] he’s thrown this spring, was 100 miles an hour and got 14 swing and misses,” Henry Davis said. “We’re gonna be all right.”

In the third inning, after Jones walked his third batter of the game, Davis went out for a mound visit that Jones joked wasn’t exactly PG. (Davis swore afterwards he was just setting up a dog hangout.) Jones then blew by Mark Contreras for a strikeout before inducing a Wilyer Abreu flyout to end the inning.

“I think that was one of the key elements I’ve seen that obviously the people here maybe have not seen as much, but he never tucks his tail in the face of adversity,” Davis said. “Seeing him do that again, he didn’t have his best stuff, but he pitched through it and gave us all he had.”

Saturday may not have been his best outing, but it’s hard to find much fault with his body of work this spring. He didn’t allow an earned run over 16 1/3 innings, walked eight and struck out 15. He did his part to make a convincing case to be on the Opening Day roster. Now it’s time to see if he will make the trip east to Miami or north to Triple-A Indianapolis.

In his postgame availability, manager Derek Shelton said Jones “had a nice spring” and the decision of where Jones starts will likely be made over the next 24 hours.

“It’s obviously an exciting time, just hearing all the stuff,” Jones said. “Whatever happens, happens. Triple-A is not the end of the world. Breaking with the team, that’s awesome.”

If one thing is evident from this spring, it’s that Jones looks like a Major Leaguer, and if he’s not on the Opening Day team, he’ll get the call to the Majors before too long.

“It’s an electric fastball,” Jason Delay said. “I don’t know all the metrics on his fastball, but I know it’s one of the best fastballs I’ve caught.”

While there’s always excitement when a top 100 prospect like Jones gets invited to Major League Spring Training, it’s understandable that plenty of the attention in Pirates camp this year was around Paul Skenes. Of course the most recent first-overall Draft pick and No. 3 overall prospect was going to command eyeballs, but Jones showed that there are two right-handed starters in the Pirates’ system who could hit triple digits with a high spin breaking pitch.

“I think he slipped a little under the radar because of [Skenes],” Delay said. “You ask anyone in this clubhouse, Jared’s got a legit legit fastball.”

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Those who have caught Jones know exactly how that power stuff can play. They also know how much he’s grown in just an offseason, and that he is far from a finished product.

“Just watch,” said Grant Koch, who caught Jones in Triple-A. “He’s going to keep growing. It’s scary to think about what he can be.”

Endy Rodríguez was struck by how fun it was to catch Jones last year with Indianapolis. Jones had faith in his stuff, and that showed in-game, with Jones rarely shaking his catcher off.

“I love him,” Rodríguez said. “The way he plays the game, he’s one of the best teammates a player can have.”

So who gets to call him a teammate first in 2024, the Minor Leaguers or the big league club? The Pirates have had a rookie with no Major League experience break camp each of the last four years: Rule 5 picks Jose Hernandez and Luis Oviedo in 2023 and 2021 respectively, along with Diego Castillo in 2022 and JT Brubaker in 2020. None of them were nearly as highly touted of prospects as Jones.

Still, there is hope that Jones can be one of the team’s five starters to open the year.

“I don’t want to play GM,” Delay said, “but I certainly think there’s a chance.”