Jared Jones

Most eyes were on the other 22-year old pitcher on the staff, but Jones more than held his own in his rookie season as one of just four pitchers of that age to work at least 100 major league innings in 2024. Jones made the club out of camp but missed some time over the summer with a Grade 2 lat strain. Jones's ERA was on the high side overall thanks to a below average home run rate, but that can be forgiven for such a young pitcher. Had Jones not been pitching behind a generational phenom of a pitcher, his season would be looked at in a better light by many. You should be encouraged how Pittsburgh has managed to keep Jones's workload around 125-135 innings each of the past three seasons while developing him. We should not expect him to come out working 170+ innings this season, but the organization has clearly been very deliberate in their management of Jones. The next step will be to find a more usable third pitch as neither his curveball or changeup are there yet, neither by outcomes nor other underlying indicators. He was still rather split neutral despite the lack of a quality third pitch which really speaks to how impressive his fastball and slider combination is right now. Read Past Outlooks