Garrett Jones Hits Pirates' 10,000th Homerun

28 year old ro0kie Garrett Jones hit the Pirates’ 10,000th homerun on Wednesday.  Here’s an article about him.

Jones is a classic 4-AAA player who spent four full seasons with the Twins’ AAA team the Rochester Red Wings.  Perhaps describing him as a 4-A player is too kind: he stayed at AAA all those years because it took him that long to master AAA pitching.

Jones is one of those great stories of a player who put in years in the minors and was awfully close but never quite good enough to make it to the Show.  This year he’s gotten a chance with the Pirates, a team desparate for major league players after trading away all their veterans, and Jones has responded with a career year (or half-season, at least).

With 18 HRs in 214 major league ABs so far, Jones is a legitimate NL Rookie of the Year candidate.  He’s playing so well this year, he now has a real chance at a major league career.

Unfortunately for Pirates’ fans, Jones really isn’t that good.  His major league OPS so far this year is .984.  The only minor league season in which he came close to that number is his 2004 at AA New Britain when he hit 30 HRs and had a .949 OPS.

Jones’ highest OPS in four seasons as AAA Rochester’s starting 1Bman was .821.  In half a season at AAA Indianapolis this year before the Pirates promoted him at the end of June, he had an .850 OPS.

In short, Garrett Jones is not likely to be even the next Jack Cust, a guy who established himself as a major leaguer at age 28, but had put up great OPS numbers for years in the minors (Cust had an OPS of .931 or better in AAA ball three different seasons).  Still, Jones has now established himself as a major league player, and he’s a left-handed hitter with power, so he’s got a chance to stick around a few years and have a major league career.  Best of luck to him.