If you look past the fluke batting average at Palm Beach, he’s still a guy who is striking out nearly as often as he was last year. Looking ahead to his major league career, he still doesn’t look like he will hit for a good average or be more than an average on-base guy. That’s a pretty significant difference between Jones and Jennings.

Jones’ power has increased this year – which is great. I’m just not sure that alone is enough to vault him from ‘toolsy/raw’ to ‘top 100′ guy. The standards are pretty high for corner outfielders, as they should be.

I have to disagree with you when you say that he would have to be taking 400 PAs alone, versus all the other plate appearances, etc.

The difference in doing that with Jones vs. doing that in a negative way with Colby is that these numbers don’t occur in a vacuum. If you look at it that way, then yes, that point makes, sense, but obviously that’s not the whole story.

With Jones, you’re looking at a player who was projected to be an elite talent, but was very raw. His numbers are finally beginning to come around, lending credence to the early projections people had for him. With Colby, you’re talking about a player who has been projected to do great things, who has done very well so far, and has had a bad season. Now, both years may encompasse approximately the same number of plate appearances, but when you’re comparing the two, one of the players appears to be progressing toward what was expected of him, while one is experiencing what appears to be an anomalous struggle.

Now, if scouting reports on Colby were to begin saying that he has regressed significantly, in terms of his plate discipline or whatever, then there would be some credence to that. We haven’t heard those arguments, though, so I have to assume that that isn’t the case.

I think what you would be missing with the above train of thought is the bigger picture, the direction that each player is moving in. Like I said, if you were to take those 400 PAs (or however many), in a strict vacuum, then you could make that argument, that those 400 shouldn’t count any more than the other 1000 that Jones has had. But that ignores the whole notion of ‘progression’.

I have no idea if LD% in A ball mean anything, but I would love to see somebody do some research and find out if they do.

I guess no news is better than news that he signed with Cincinnati…

Somebody yesterday was asking about Reifer, I assume he will be in the Quad Cities next year. Palm Beach will probably have at least Parisie and Marquies next year. So QC will need a closer.

Last year Rasmus-Perez-Anderson were our top 3 and all were in the top 100. Garcia just missed and probably won’t be eligible. Perez is certain to be non-eligible the way things stand. Wallace is probably #2 or #3 on most rankings on our team. I don’t think it’s a huge stretch to put Jones #3 on the Cards list, but I guess I don’t know the rest of the minors the way I’d like to to know who would rank ahead of Jones.

Last year KG ranked Desmond Jennings, a comparable player to Jones tools and numbers at 17, and there’s a few people out there that would now take Jones over Jennings.

And as far at top players going into the tank, it happens. Just look at Jose Tabata or Jordan Schafer. I’m not saying either are now hopeless causes, but they were top ranked guys who have had troubles this year. Personally, I think Jones is for real.

I’m torn: happy for Walters, bitter for being proved wrong.

Ultimately for Jones to even crack the Top 100 prospect list, it would mean he would have to be (theoretically) one of the top 3 or 4 prospects in the system — assuming every team has an equal amount of players in the Top 100, which we all know isn’t true. Has Jones’ stock risen that much this year? I agree he’s an awesome prospect and I get giddy as hell when I see his results every day.

But ultimately that means our prospect rankings would have to be:

1) Rasmus
2) Anderson
3) Jones/Todd/Mortensen/Ottavino/Wallace/Kozma/Everyone else

Has Jones made that big of a leap this year? I’m not sure yet. I want to see him continue this success into next year. I’m a firm Jones believer, but I don’t want to get my heart broken if he goes into the tank next year.