Rockies Send Nolan Jones Back to the Guardians
After an impressive rookie season for the Rockies in 2023, Nolan Jones struggled mightily last year, missing roughly two and a half months due to recurring lower back woes and a left knee injury, and slipping below replacement level when he was able to play. On Saturday, the Rockies traded him back to the Guardians — the team that originally drafted and developed him — in exchange for superutilityman Tyler Freeman. It’s puzzling to see the Rockies punt a player who just a year ago appeared to be a franchise cornerstone, particularly as their acquisition of Freeman is driven by the loss of starting second baseman Thairo Estrada to a broken wrist, a short-term problem considering Colorado is unlikely to contend this season.
The 26-year-old Jones hit just .227/.321/.320 (70 wRC+) with three homers in 297 plate appearances for the Rockies last season while splitting his time between left and right field. His 67-point drop from his 137 wRC+ in 2023 tied for the second largest in the majors:
| Player | Team | 2023 | 2024 | Dif |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Brandon Drury | LAA | 114 | 34 | -80 |
| Nolan Jones | COL | 137 | 70 | -67 |
| Chas McCormick | HOU | 133 | 66 | -67 |
| Adam Duvall | BOS/ATL | 116 | 58 | -58 |
| Eddie Rosario | ATL/WSN | 100 | 45 | -56 |
| Edouard Julien | MIN | 135 | 80 | -55 |
| Bo Bichette | TOR | 124 | 71 | -54 |
| Mitch Garver | TEX/SEA | 140 | 88 | -52 |
| Sean Murphy | ATL | 130 | 78 | -52 |
| Will Benson | CIN | 127 | 75 | -52 |
While Jones has shown that he can be a productive major leaguer, the same can’t yet be said for the 25-year-old Freeman, who hit .209/.305/.321 with seven homers in 383 PA for the Guardians last year while mainly playing center field but spotting at second base, shortstop, and third base. His 84 wRC+ was his highest mark in parts of three major league seasons, which isn’t saying much.
The Guardians drafted Jones in the second round in 2016 out of a Philadelphia high school, and he made our Top 100 Prospects list annually from from 2019-22 on the strength of a strong arm and 70-grade raw power from the left side, peaking at no. 52 in 2021 as a 50-FV prospect. Originally a third baseman, he was blocked in Cleveland by perennial All-Star José Ramírez, and at a listed 6-foot-4, 220 pounds, Jones outgrew the position physically. He played 28 games with the Guardians, mainly as a right fielder, in 2022, but his stock slipped as he transitioned away from third base and struggled to make contact at the major league level. On November 15, 2022, the Guardians traded him to the Rockies in exchange for middle infielder Juan Brito, a 50-FV prospect who placed at no. 78 on this year’s Top 100.
After tearing up the Pacific Coast League at the start of 2023, Jones got the call from the Rockies and put together an impressive rookie season, hitting .297/.389/.542 with 20 homers and 20 steals in 106 games — a pace that would have put him in the 30/30 club over the course of a full season — while leading the team in wRC+ (137) and WAR (3.8), and finishing fourth in the NL Rookie of the Year voting. Yet he struggled out of the gate in 2024, then missed all of May and the first half of June due to a lower back strain; he had been bothered by back issues in spring training but they weren’t deemed serious enough at the time to sideline him. While rehabbing from the back injury, he sprained his left knee, prolonging his rehab. Upon returning in mid-June, he had more success in that his walk rate improved, but his power did not materialize.
Jones landed on the IL again just before the All-Star break as his back issues returned. In late July, he conceded that he had been pressing at the plate, saying, “It’s been a physical and mental battle for me this year, and I’m trying to stay positive and know that my time is coming.” His time would get harder first. On August 4, his fiancée Morgan Gougher gave birth to daughter Kamryn, but the joy of the occasion was tempered by a health scare. The newborn struggled to breathe due to fluid in her lungs, spent three days in the neonatal intensive care unit, and required supplemental oxygen for more than a month; thankfully, she is now healthy. Jones finally returned to the lineup on August 20, but still showed little sign of the power or speed that characterized his 2023 season.
Here’s how his season looked in terms of traditional stats:
| Split | PA | HR | BB% | K% | AVG | OBP | SLG | wRC+ |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2023 Total | 424 | 20 | 12.5% | 29.7% | .297 | .389 | .542 | 137 |
| Through April 28 | 103 | 1 | 8.7% | 35.9% | .170 | .243 | .277 | 31 |
| June 14–July 11 | 88 | 2 | 18.2% | 29.5% | .246 | .391 | .362 | 105 |
| August 21 Onward | 106 | 0 | 10.4% | 26.4% | .269 | .340 | .333 | 79 |
| 2024 Total | 297 | 3 | 12.1% | 30.6% | .227 | .321 | .320 | 70 |
Jones always had a tall task ahead of him to replicate his 2023 numbers, which were driven by a .401 batting average on balls in play offsetting a strikeout rate just shy of 30%. As the splits show, he had little chance to settle in during any of those three stretches in 2024. A spike in walk rate drove his production during that middle period, and it’s fair to wonder how much his drop in swing rate (from 41.5% overall in 2023 to 39.9% last year, though never varying by more than about a point across those three stretches) was driven by a desire to avoid the pain of taking a big cut and missing.
As it happens, Statcast’s bat-tracking metrics illustrate that Jones not only didn’t swing as hard as he did in the second half of 2023 (the data for which were recently released), but he also swung hard much less often as the 2024 season progressed and cut down the length of his swing. Once he did, he was able to square the ball up with greater frequency, but he didn’t hit it as hard, and rarely barreled it:
| Split | Avg Bat Speed | Fast Swing | SquaredUp% | Blast% | Length | BBE | EV | Brl% | HH% |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2023 Total | 72.4 | 27.6% | 19.1% | 10.8% | 6.8 | 242 | 90.1 | 15.7% | 41.3% |
| Through April 28 | 71.8 | 24.3% | 24.3% | 6.5% | 6.8 | 57 | 89.2 | 3.5% | 42.1% |
| June 14–July 11 | 71.0 | 18.5% | 20.0% | 11.1% | 6.9 | 45 | 88.2 | 6.7% | 53.3% |
| August 21 Onward | 69.8 | 10.7% | 27.0% | 6.9% | 6.6 | 67 | 87.4 | 7.5% | 40.3% |
| 2024 Total | 70.7 | 17.0% | 23.9% | 8.2% | 6.7 | 169 | 88.2 | 5.9% | 44.4% |
Jones’ 2023 barrel rate placed in the 94th percentile. He didn’t have enough batted ball events to qualify for Statcast’s leaderboard in 2024, but his barrel rate placed in the 38th percentile among players with at least 50 BBE. His overall rate of pulling the ball in the air dropped from a middling 14.9% in 2023 to a meager 10.1% in ’24, with his xSLG falling from .499 to .322.
All of which is to say that it’s pretty clear Jones wasn’t at his best in 2024, either physically or mentally. He’s been hitting the ball harder this spring (90.9 mph average exit velocity) but without much power, so it’s not yet obvious that he’s back to his previous form. Still, it’s not as though the Rockies moved him to make room for a better outfielder, as neither 23-year-old Zac Veen (40+ FV) nor 22-year-old Yanquiel Fernandez (45 FV) have had success in Triple-A; Veen was optioned on Sunday, one day after the trade, while Fernandez was sent down earlier this month. Jones won’t even be arbitration eligible until after this season, so he still has four full years of club control remaining.
What’s also not clear yet is where Jones will fit into the Guardians lineup. Steven Kwan is the starter in left field, and Lane Thomas is in center, though he’s coming off an uneven season; after hitting for a 107 wRC+ with Washington, he was traded to Cleveland in late July and posted an 84 wRC+ the rest of the way. Prior to the Jones trade, lefty Will Brennan and righty Jhonkensy Noel were on track to platoon as part of a group that ranked just 22nd in our Positional Power Rankings. The 27-year-old Brennan had an underwhelming season (.264/.309/.388, 98 wRC+, 0.5 WAR) in 2024, while the 23-year-old Noel was more productive, bopping 13 homers in 198 PA while batting .218/.288/.486 (118 wC+) with 0.6 WAR. Both have options remaining, whereas Jones does not.
According to manager Stephen Vogt, the situation is in flux:
“I had informed Will that he was going to be on the opening day roster,” said Vogt. “With the trade happening as quickly as it did, I told him that’s now up in the air.
“No final decisions have been made. We just have to work through some things over the next few days. This was unforeseen. When you make a move or a trade, people get affected by it. We have to sort out what the best roster for us looks like.”
Jones, Brennan, and Kwan all have a smattering of center field experience at the big league level, but not enough to draw any conclusions from other than that they’re better off in corner outfield spots. To these eyes, the most logical fit is a Jones/Noel platoon in right field, with Brennan backing up Thomas in center.
While the Guardians are getting a right fielder who’s got some power, the Rockies are getting a different type of player in Freeman, a second-round pick in 2017 out of a Rancho Cucamonga, California high school. Like Jones, he was a perennial figure on Top 100 lists, making ours three times (2020–22), peaking at no. 88 as a 50-FV prospect in 2021 on the strength of a contact-oriented, skills-over-tools profile. He appeared bound for second base and drew comparison to DJ LeMahieu.
With Andrés Giménez locking down second base until he was dealt to the Blue Jays in December, and with Cleveland higher on Brayan Rocchio and Gabriel Arias as its shortstop options, the Guardians moved Freeman to center field last year. He made a team-high 97 appearances there (82 starts), but he landed on the Replacement Level Killers list and was displaced by the acquisition of Thomas, after which he spent a good chunk of his time bouncing around the infield, making 10 appearances at shortstop, eight at third base, and six at second base. His outfield defense was solid (3 DRS, 0 FRV), but his bat was not. His 87.7 mph average exit velocity placed in the 22nd percentile, his 34.6% hard-hit rate in the 21st, his .338 xSLG in the 11th, and his 3.2% barrel rate in the sixth.
The Rockies like Freeman’s versatility and have an immediate opening for him at second base. After non-tendering former Gold Glove winner Brendan Rodgers last year, they signed Estrada to a one-year deal in January to be their starting second baseman, but he’ll be out four to eight weeks with a right wrist fracture, resulting from a hit-by-pitch last Thursday.
“The ability to play a variety of positions – let’s say the triangle in the middle, short, second and center – gives us some versatility,” Rockies general manager Bill Schmidt said of Freeman. “There’s a speed component. He’s a contact hitter. I classify him as a ‘baseball player.’”
It’s that kind of situational awareness and long-term planning that has the Rockies on track to win 63 games, according to our Playoff Odds. The Guardians may not look like a playoff team right now despite reaching the ALCS last year — they’re forecast for just 79 wins — but they obtained the better player in this swap, one who can further their efforts to contend.
Brooklyn-based Jay Jaffe is a senior writer for FanGraphs, the author of The Cooperstown Casebook (Thomas Dunne Books, 2017) and the creator of the JAWS (Jaffe WAR Score) metric for Hall of Fame analysis. He founded the Futility Infielder website (2001), was a columnist for Baseball Prospectus (2005-2012) and a contributing writer for Sports Illustrated (2012-2018). He has been a recurring guest on MLB Network and a member of the BBWAA since 2011, and a Hall of Fame voter since 2021. Follow him on BlueSky @jayjaffe.bsky.social.
The Rockies continue to unapologetically be the Rockies what an odd trade by them.
The only explanation I can really ever come up with for just about anything they do is “the baseball ops staff recommended something that was broadly reasonable, but Dick Monfort overruled it and ordered them to do the thing they just did.”
The headline on the Guardian’s fan site was classic: “Guardians Play Uno Reverse Card, Re-acquire Nolan Jones”.
Which would be pretty fun. Imagine if teams were allowed to reverse one trade every 3 years or every 5 years. Yeah, I know you couldn’t do it logistically but still fun to think about.
Would love to see the Tigers reverse the Paredes/Meadows trade…that would be fun to unpack given the Paredes card has since changed hands again!
Of course, the two trades the Guardians would really like to reverse are the ones involving Junior Caminero and Yanier Diaz.
If Cleveland had an UNO reverse card, the trade to reverse would be Caminero, not Jones.
Jones in Cleveland is in the exact same spot as Arias; hit or hit the road.
He might get 3 months instead of 2 but both are on short leashes.
The rockies got a bit of a longer term piece in that Freeman might hit a bit better in Colorado’s thin air, enough to be a roaming utility since defense is good enough pretty much everywhere. Think Ernie Clement.
They’ve got roughly equal service time. Breakouts and collapses both happen, but seems to me the guy who’s actually been a contributor at his best is the better bet as a “longer term piece” than the guy with super-utility upside if he can nudge his wRC+ up above 90.
That might be your take but how many one-year wonders have hung
around as long as, say, John McDonald?
At any moment there’s dozens of utility if, 4th OF, backup C, and pitchers bouncing around, season to season, filling out that 24th spot on the roster and making a career out of it. Often they do it by not getting hurt. Availability is valuable. Being adequate is valuable.
Once upon a time, teams carried deep benches with five or even six backups. Guys who earn their keep by pinch hitting for the pitcher, pinch running for the sluggish slugger at 1b, replacing the iron glove lf or 3b. All of which are things Freeman can do and will do them cheap.
Time will tell but I’m betting Freeman will still be on somebody-s roster long after Jones back gives out for good and he goes the way of Zimmer, Benson, Naquin, Frazier, Francisco, or any of the horde of 4th and 5th OF Cleveland has cranked out in the Dolan era.
Half a good season in Colorado is no guarantee of long term value outside of Coors.
It would be interesting to see Jones do well enough to hang around through arbitration with Cleveland but the odds are not with him. Long term I’ll take the middling floor of an 80wrc utility player over his speculative ceiling.
If nothing else, Freeman will still be employed at season’s end.
As a Guardian’s fan, my take is the following:
1) Between Jones and Freeman, Jones is the only one who’s done something at the major league level. So that’s a plus for the Guardians.
2) On the other hand, Jones was awful last season and has also been awful during spring. So you have to wonder what he is at this point.
3) On the third hand, this guarantees that Gabriel Arias will be Guardians starting second baseman. Which I don’t think anyone is excited about.
Thanks; now all I can envision is a three-armed creature playing in the left-center gap… like an alien playing on a 4-outfielder, slow-pitch softball team.
You’re lucky that I didn’t go with my original 4-hand comment…
Goro gives baseball commentary
I’d rather have a three armed player than a middle infielder with no arms.
They’re called Moties and are key to Niven and Pournelle’s masterpiece, THE MOTE IN GOD’S EYE.
The actual expression is “on the gripping hand” and it’s made it to the slang dictionary. (The other other notable phase/concept from that book is Crazy Eddie who does otherwise reasonable things at the absolute worst time possible, creating chaos and disaster. Plenty of those in the real world.)
And don’t be sure Arias hangs around long; Brito started slow in ST but was getting hot the last week or so. Arias will probably get a sore neck by may from looking over his shoulder.
I’ll be the contrarian and have my 2025 bold prediction that Freeman out-WARs Jones and is the better player moving forward in this deal. I know that Freeman hasn’t had good MLB performance to date. But it was a relatively small sample size and he was learning a new position in CF. He’s worked out hard and I can see thise exit velocities climbing and pairing well with his speed and contact skills. I think he has post-hype rebound written all over him. This may not age well, but, wanted to put the perspective out there.
Steamer has them both projected for about 270 PAs. Freeman is projected for 1.0 WAR, Jones for 0.7. And Jones has some pretty serious durability concerns. I wouldn’t have made the trade if I were the Rockies but I think the one-sidedness of the trade is being greatly overstated.
Don’t forget: he’s going to Colorado and Jones is coming from there.
0.7 WAR might be optimistic.
Arguably the worst part of this is that they’re giving Jones’ playing time to Nick Martini instead of Zac Veen. Rockies gonna Rockie
This is mind-blowing to me. Even within the Rockies brand of ever-attempting to win as many current-year games as possible, in spite of postseason hopelessness, I can’t imagine a single Rox fan excitedly buying a ticket to see Martini in 2025. Even if they’ve concluded Veen is not ready, why not roll the dice on some young out-of-options OF (see: Jose Azocar, Josh Palacios, Nick Pratto, etc.) for a few months?
Rockies like Msrtini so much they feel dizzy.
I am a bit of a Freeman apologist, and I don’t know that his future value potential is as high as Jones, but I think there is some meat on the bone here. First, while I realize his BABIP will most likely always be lower due to his unimpressive quality of contact, his BABIP was only .227 last year. If it is close to the expected number of .280, he is at least a league average hitter (100 wRC+). The second thing is that being able to make contact with a good understanding of the strike zone is a decent foundational skill. He is never going to be Aaron Judge, but even an incremental increase in batted ball quality (and we have seen some of that this spring), raises his floor quite a bit. I think there is a useful player in there. Finally, he is is still just 25 so he is at an age where he can still plausibly make that leap. The larger question is whether an incompetent franchise like the Rockies can help him develop to that next level.
Yeah, the case for optimism is that he’s under-performed his xwOBA 2 years in a row in a sample size that’s too small to call it a trend, so there’s a chance he’s a better player than the record shows even without any sort of adjustments. Add in the possibility of adjustments/improvements/added strength and it seems like there’s a there, there.
Cutting against that: while no team’s infallible, arguably nobody knows his development/process/potential for growth better than the smart team that just cut bait on him to re-acquire Nolan Jones.
“The ability to play a variety of positions – let’s say the triangle in the middle, short, second and center – gives us some versatility,” Rockies general manager Bill Schmidt said of Freeman. “There’s a speed component. He’s a contact hitter. I classify him as a ‘baseball player.’”
This is the type of perception that separates MLB GMs from the rest of us.
There are some MLB types like Buck Showalter who are adept at spitting out these nonsense quotes but if you get them talking to the right people you realize it’s an act.
I would like to think that this is also an act, but that theory is undercut by the fact that he just traded Nolan Jones for Freeman.
Yeah, that’s a meme-worthy utterance right there.
The bulk of the Guardians offseason moves on the offensive side have been swapping out high contact, high chase guys (Naylor, Gimenez, and presumably Brennan) for guys who command the strikezone and can draw a walk (Santana and Jones).
Arias and Noel are still here and don’t exactly fit this philosophical shift, but both mash the ball and won’t have a long leash if they struggle. Arias in particular feels like a placeholder while Brito/ Martinez gain some momentum in AAA.
I think Freeman can be a good player. I was looking forward to seeing what he could do this year, but he was a redundant player for Cleveland. I genuinely hope this is a win-win trade for both teams.
Also, as a Guardians fan, I’m still in shock that these two were traded for each other. Freeman and Jones were Cleveland’s top two prospects for a long time (in prospect terms).
I’d love to see a deep dive into how rare it is for a team to re-acquire a player they traded away before the player even hits arbitration.
Uh, you did see Jones’ K rate, right? 30%?
This is the ONE THING the Rockies got right, fleecing them for Jones. Now they are trading him for Freeman?!
I obviously love this for the Guardians and hate it for the Rockies.
You really don’t like Brito, do you?
I like Jones more than the consensus and Brito less.
I think Brito will probably hit better than Arias but that’s a low bar. His defense will make it so he probably is a 1+ WAR player.
Ever since it became apparent that Jones is a decent defender in the corner outfield I like him a lot better. Colorado makes most outfielders look bad, even on advanced stats. He doesn’t have to hit that much above average to be a regular.
If that’s all he brings he won’t last long with Cleveland. They need big offense from rf not defense. 0.7 WAR isn’t exactly promising. He’s just another warm body they’re throwing out hoping for a decent half season.
Can I play in a fantasy league with the Rox brass?
Man that would be interesting. I wonder what FOs would be best at fantasy if they played as a collective (Rockies entire FO vs Dodgers vs Mets vs…)
I wouldn’t be shocked to see it not correlate with MLB success very well, especially once you get past the top couple teams
No mention of Nolan Jones honeymoon Danny Santana like rookie season with a 400 babip?