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'He hits the ball really hard': Nolan Jones among MLB leaders in exit velocity despite slump
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- 'He hits the ball really hard': Nolan Jones among MLB leaders in exit velocity despite slump
CLEVELAND — Sometimes trusting the process is the only course of action for a hitter, even if it's the most difficult thing to do right in the middle of a slump.
On any given at-bat, a hitter would take a bloop single that just happens to fall over a hard-hit liner that ends up in a glove. But when the latter situation happens too often, frustrations build, even if the quality of contact is solid.
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That's the mental middle ground Guardians outfielder Nolan Jones is battling right now.
Jones, acquired just before Opening Day in exchange for Tyler Freeman , has had a rough return to Cleveland . Entering the game Friday, May 30, against the Los Angeles Angels , Jones was hitting just .194 with a .568 OPS — it's one of the worst 50-game stretches of his entire career. He had a three-hit game against the Los Angeles Dodgers this week, which the Guardians hope can lead to a breakout.
But there are additional reasons to think Jones might be closer to at least a better June and beyond — he's been hitting the ball hard, but he just hasn't been rewarded for it like hitters are on average.
Nolan Jones stats
Entering Friday, Jones was in the 92nd percentile in the league with an average exit velocity on batted balls of 93.0 mph. That ranks 22nd in MLB , ahead of hitters like Vladimir Guerrero Jr. , Austin Riley and Bobby Witt Jr.
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In fact, it's the highest average exit velocity on the Guardians, ahead of Jose Ramirez . And Jones' hard-hit percentage (50) is in the 84th percentile in baseball.
"We look at all the numbers, and Nolan hits the ball hard — he hits the ball really hard," said manager Stephen Vogt . "It was nice to see him get three results, and I think just a day like that can get you going and it reminds you, yes, I still can get hits because you start to wonder sometimes [when] you're hitting the ball hard, you're hitting it all over the place, but it's always getting caught."
It leads to a key balance Vogt has to find. Do you bench a hitter struggling so much to find hits, or do you keep his bat in the lineup as much as possible because he's making hard contact, and eventually the averages should regress to the mean? It's a classic baseball conundrum, one that now has added context because of the added implementation of analytics.
This is where some "expected" analytical measures comes to into play — numbers used by teams to indicate lucky or unlucky hitters on balls put into play, like a weakly hit single finding the right patch of grass compared to someone else drilling a ball 100 mph that is to the wrong spot.
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There are two measurements relevant here. The first is Expected Weighted On-Base Average (xwOBA). This essentially measures a hitter's quality of contact plus strikeouts and walks, and can be used to indicate hitters who have been lucky or unlucky on balls put into play.
The second is slugging percentage versus expected slugging percentage , which is simpler. It indicates, based on things like exit velocity, launch angle and quality of contact, what a hitter's slugging percentage should be with everything else being equal.
Among all qualified hitters, Jones has the fourth-highest difference between slugging and expected slugging percentage in the league, meaning there's an argument he's been one of the unluckiest hitters in baseball. The only hitters with a larger (and positive) slugging difference than Jones are Juan Soto , Salvador Perez and Yordan Alvarez .
Jones' slugging percentage is .287. Analytical averages suggest it should be .436.
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Among the league leaders in positive xwOBA (which again means they've been unlucky), Jones ranks eighth in MLB .
There are seven hitters in the top eight in both categories, which leads to a pretty easy argument they've been the seven unluckiest hitters in the league this season. Jones is one of them, along with Soto, Perez, Alvarez, Bryan Reynolds , Marcus Semien and Andrew Vaughn .
"Obviously there's things that everyone needs to improve upon, and Nolan's no different," Vogt said. "But those expected numbers, they tell more of a story than maybe just the actual numbers."
Cleveland Guardians' Nolan Jones hits an RBI single against the Milwaukee Brewers on May 14, 2025, in Cleveland, Ohio.
Guardians' message to Nolan Jones during 2025 slump
Of course, just because there are positive batted-ball indicates, none of it means Jones is guaranteed to break out of his slump anytime soon. Former Cleveland first baseman Jake Bauers was once in a similar spot, and he didn't see the kind of turnaround that other hitters sometimes do in these situations.
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But Jones is hitting the ball hard, and harder than many of the game's top names, including every other Guardians hitter. Although a slump of this magnitude and length is eternally frustrating for a hitter, being able to point to something positive is, at least, a silver lining of sorts.
"It allows us to say, 'Hey, keep going. You're right there. It's close. They're going to start falling,'" Vogt said. "And Nolan is a really good hitter off to a slow start. .. He's going to keep getting opportunities because we know what he's capable of."
It's been part of the message the Guardians keep giving to Jones as he tries to find his footing — or least some positive results.
"These coaches have done a really great job of giving me the confidence that they believe in me and working with me through this really, really tough start I've had," Jones said. "I think that goes a long way."
This article originally appeared on Akron Beacon Journal: Guardians outfielder Nolan Jones among MLB exit velocity leaders
