Jared Jones’ Historic September Changes Everything for 2027

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1:09Jared Jones in the month of September had 40 strikeouts and recorded a 093 ERA. At a curiosity I went to stat head and I checked to see when was the last time a part had that over a calendar month. And the most recent was Mike Lynch. Who you might not have heard of. You probably didn't get to watch in play live because he did that in September of 1904. It was a historic end to a season that came in with a lot of uncertainty. But I think it really does establish that he is going to be a huge part of this team in 2027. Good morning and welcome to Offbeat. You are on North Shore 9 presented by Fandall. My name is Alex Dump and this is a daily look at your Pittsburgh pirates. Jared Jones was named the National League, pitcher of the month and Mason Montgomery was named the National League, reliever of the month for the month of September on Tuesday.

2:15And credit to Mason Montgomery. It was a great month. And what I think really stood out to me the most was he blows that save in game 161. He goes to Don Kelly's like I if we get another opportunity I want to be that guy in the ninth. I don't know for certain if the pirates have a closer here, but man, they've got someone who really does fit the mold and could be really dominant. But I really want to focus more on the Jared Jones end of these year ends to perlatives. Because we really didn't know what we were to expect from Jared Jones coming into the year. He had the internal brace surgery in 2025. He wasn't part of the opening day, opening day team. He didn't debut until the end of May. And whenever he was rehabbing so much of the discourse was he should just be a reliever.

3:20He's only got two pitches. He should just be a reliever. And it drove me up a wall. It started before the rehab assignment. We heard it in April. We heard it in the off season. I believe it was here on North Shore 9. Whenever in January on one of the episodes I was a guest. And I said he was the George Harrison song by sweet Lord. Where I'm like I hadn't heard that for a while. And then like I heard it again. It's like this is an incredible, incredible song. Why aren't we talking about this song all the time? And once you just hear it once you're going to be like, oh yeah, that's you don't send George Harrison to the bullpen. Come on. That's what that was. It was a reminder of how dominant this guy can be. And we saw growing pains in the first couple months of the year.

4:22There were some highs. There were some lows. There was a lot of learning. And I think a good chunk of it was just getting re-acclimated to major league speed. Jerry Jones said in his year end, you know, after Game of Thrones 62 talking about it, that how fortunate it was that there really weren't any setbacks in his journey, health wise. And it just let him continue to work on his craft. And I think we saw a lot of the fruits of that in September. It's not lost on me that with the exception of the end of 2024, which had shortened starts for him, you know, his first full year in the major leagues, smaller sample size, trying to shorten those outings, have him cross the finish line. You know, you don't have to push him all the way. And in May of this year, which was all of one start, that it was this month in September was the most we ever saw the curve ball through a 10% of the time.

5:27And I'm not going to look, he's fastball slider. Those are his two bread and butter pitches. Whenever you can throw 99 miles per hour and that slider, which just has that bite, that dive, the slider is the best pitch. And the fastball, barring a Mitch Keller quote that he gave me once, he described it as an FU fastball. And it really is. There's just tenacity in the way that he throws it. But we saw in that rookie year, there would be times where he doesn't have one of those two pitches. And he just really leaned on the other. And it didn't really work out all the time. Maybe you could get through the order once, but whenever you get through the order second or third time, it's like, hey, he only has three breaking balls. We could sit on this. That was the issue. That was whenever we saw 2024 Jared Jones getting to a rut. And it's why candidly, I don't think we saw a run that even really approached what we

6:34saw this September from him. But he was talking during his rehab, preparing for this year. He's like, curve ball to change up. They feel better. And I don't think they're ever going to be the same type of pitches as the fastball slider. I think the fastball is like a 60 grade and the slider is probably a 70. And I mean, this is my eye test scouting. But even if the curve ball or the change up, they just have to be okay. The change up, I think, gets good downward movement. He moves it the way it should. That fastball he wants to ride it high, ideally to his hand side. The change up kind of drops to the hand side. So even a mediocre change up, whenever you can tunnel it, whenever you can get that spin on the force, a bird, you go down, that's different.

7:39Doesn't have to be a great pitch for it to be a great tunnel. Same goes with the slider and the curve ball. They move differently. They land in similar spots. If you just check the heat maps on baseball, Savant, but the way that he breaks the pitches, the intent behind him, it means a lot to how he throws it and how they play. And my first takeaway was like, oh, wow, nobody got a hit against his curve ball in September of this month. That was true. There were only four registered at bats with it, three strikeouts and what bad ball event. You know what he wants to end with. But if he can get there in different ways and save that slider and make that a two strike pitch, that's deadly because his whiff rate with that slider was 51% in September. There's a reason why this guy was seemingly taking a no hit baited to the fifth, the sixth

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11:52If there was any complaint with Jared Jones September, and I'm really stretching here, it was that he only threw 29 innings. And part of that was just getting across the finish line. He threw 101 in two thirds innings in the major leagues. Pretty much 120 professional innings this year. First year coming back from the internal brace, that's a fine figure to wind up that. I mean, we saw Brax and Ashcraft who had his fair share of injuries coming up, never really threw more innings or ton of innings as a pro. Through about 110, 120, I can't remember completely offhand as Orookie and then got to 165 this year. And I know he finished the year on the injured list, but for all intents and purposes, he

12:52pitched a full season. And not only did he pitch a full season, he pitched a complete game. He would regularly go six or seven innings in a start. He did. There weren't a lot of restrictions. Jared Jones there were more than a couple of restrictions along the way. That's not a criticism on the player. That's not a criticism on management or health. It's just a matter of circumstance. Did you just see what he did in September? Did you see how special an arm he has? If you can take measures to protect him, you have to do it. And I think a lot of the training wheels will be off in 2027. I'm going to put an asterisk next to that because we don't know what this lockout is going to look like when it is going to end. In 2022, Spring Training was just a little over three weeks.

13:53The pirates did the piggyback strategy for a good chunk of the early part of the season, where they would have starters go four or five innings and then they'd bring in a reliever to go two or three. They just Frankenstein starts. We don't know how long this is going to go, how long a potential spring training would be. It's a lot of speculation. But I do think Jared Jones is not going to have the same restrictions next year. They're always going to be mindful of his health. They're going to be mindful of his workload. I don't think he's going to jump up the 200 innings pitched in 2027. But if they do play 162, I don't see any reason why he can't, you know, right now throw 160, 170 innings. He's stone 140 as a pro before like he can make that leap. This was a good platform year for him to take a big step in 2027.

14:55And man, what a game changer that would be for this rotation. Because Braxton Ashcraft is an all star and I expect big things from him again in 2027. Paul schemes is Paul schemes. He had a disappointing by his standard season, but he is still. He still had a three war campaign. He still struck out 200 batters. It wasn't hoarded by any means that, you know, he could take, you know, bounce closer back to that say young form next year. But with Chandler, I thought he laid a really good foundation, you know, in the second half of this year, I know there's the season stats aren't quite where he wanted them to be. I don't blame them. There's some learning. There's some growing peds. I think it will make him a better pitcher in the long run. And then, you know, you have Mitch Keller for the fifth assuming that he does return.

15:56I know it was a down year, but we have seen him be a reliable guy for years. Now the season's over. We're back to right where we were last year. It's like, man, look at this rotation. What could it be? And Jones wasn't part of that. Look at that 20, 20, 20, 20, 26 rotation. I think it what it could be. He's like, yeah, whenever he comes back mid seasons, like no, no restrictions, no asterix, no, just, just letting Jared Jones eat. Seeing how close he can replicate that September over the course of a full season. I don't think he's going to go a full season, striking out 40% of his batters faced with a sub one ERA, you know, over what would that be? Like 180 innings. I think that's a little, a little too bullish of prediction right there. But I see the foundation. I see a guy who has two other clubs in his bag that maybe he didn't have as a rookie,

17:04or if he did have them as a rookie, he wouldn't feel as comfortable going to them. I know he's going to attack with those two pitches with the fastball on the slider first, but there's a whole arsenal here. And I think September is a pretty good indicator of what he can look like whenever he has all four of those pitches working. Thank you so much for listening to Offbeat. Here on North Shore 9, presented by Fiendal. If you haven't already, be sure to subscribe wherever you find podcasts or check us out on YouTube if you want to see my smiling face. Thank you so much for listening. We will talk again tomorrow. All right, that wraps up this episode of North Shore 9. Thanks so much for tuning in. Whether you're listening on the podcast or catching us on YouTube, if you enjoyed the show, please give this video a thumbs up and don't forget to hit that subscribe button if you haven't already. It really helps us grow.

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