Bucs rookie Jones fills the zone and you still can't hit him

It's hard not to see it when Jared Jones is ripping 99 mph elevated fastballs past the best hitters in the game, or burying them with dead-zone power sliders -- the Pirates have a Spencer Strider clone out there on the mound.

The 22-year-old Jones, who's been lighting up the Majors since his big league debut on March 30, looks like the second coming of the Braves ace, who was the most dominant starting pitcher in baseball for the last two years before his injury this season.

The overpowering fastball-slider combo that drives their success is the same:

• Jones throws an upper-90s rising four-seamer, driving down the mound to generate much greater release extension than normal for a 6-foot-1 pitcher, which makes his fastball extra explosive.
• Jones tunnels that four-seamer with an upper-80s gyro slider that has tight vertical break, resulting in huge swing-and-miss numbers when hitters can't differentiate it from his heater.
• Jones' two-pitch combination is so nasty that he only needs to mix in his changeup and curveball to keep hitters honest, even as a starter.

Replace "Jones" with "Strider," and the arsenal description is basically identical. It's the blueprint that the 6-foot Strider uses to rack up his all-world strikeout numbers. But none of that is on Jones' mind when he's pitching.

"I don't think," Jones said. "I just go out there and throw the ball. As natural as possible. I'm not thinking about my mechanics, or how it comes off my hand."

Strider also isn't the pitcher Jones watched coming up. That pitcher was Walker Buehler, who was an exciting young flamethrower himself when he arrived with the Dodgers.

Buehler has that electric power fastball and power slider, too. And even though he uses a more diverse repertoire than Jones and Strider, if you hone in on those two pitches, you can see shades of Buehler and Strider in Jones.

Check out the key Statcast pitch metrics for Jones' four-seamer and slider in 2024 vs. Strider in his breakout 2022 season and Buehler in his breakout 2018 season:

• Jones' 4-seamer (2024):
  97.3 mph / 2,535 rpm / 11" vert. movement (+2" of rise vs. avg.)

• Strider's 4-seamer (2022):
  98.2 mph / 2,343 rpm / 11" vert. movement (+2" of rise vs. avg.)

• Buehler's 4-seamer (2018):
  96.2 mph / 2,415 rpm / 12" vert. movement (+3" of rise vs. avg.)

• Jones' slider (2024):
  88.6 mph / 34" vert. movement (+2" of drop vs. avg.) / 4" break

• Strider's slider (2022):
  86.3 mph / 36" vert. movement (+1" of drop vs. avg.) / 5" break

• Buehler's slider (2018):
  87.1 mph / 36" vert. movement (+2" of drop vs. avg.) / 9" break

"I was a Dodgers fan growing up, and he was electric," Jones said of Buehler. "He threw hard. And that's kind of who I see myself being. From when I was a kid."

Now Jones is a rising star strikeout artist like Buehler and Strider.

Jones has 39 K's in 29 innings through five career starts, with a National League-leading 12.1 K/9 and Major League-leading 34.8% strikeout rate as he enters his next matchup against the Giants on Sunday. Jones has induced more swings-and-misses than any other pitcher in 2024, with 98, including 25 in his last start, the high of the 2024 season.

That's all very Strider- and Buehler-like. But Jones is also getting it done with a twist he learned in Pittsburgh: "Best stuff, in the zone."

That's the motto of the Pirates pitching staff. It echoes the pitching philosophies adopted by multiple clubs around baseball in 2024. (The Mariners, for example, have "Dominate the zone." The Royals have "Reign the zone.") But Jones has embraced the Pirates' version, and embodied it.

He's got the "best stuff" part, easy.

• Jones' 97.3 mph four-seam velocity is second among starting pitchers (min. 100 thrown). And he's reached back for as high as 100.3 mph for a whiff against William Contreras
• His 88.6 mph slider velocity is seventh-highest among starters (min. 50 thrown). He's dialed that up to a high of 92.7 mph for a K against Jeff McNeil
• The 36.4% swing-and-miss rate against his four-seamer is second-highest among starters (min. 50 swings)
• The 51.1% swing-and-miss rate against his slider is fifth-highest among starters (min. 25 swings)

But it's the "in the zone" part that's really made Jones stand out as a rookie.

Highest in-zone %, SP, 2024
Min. 250 total pitches

1. Zach Eflin: 60.1%
2. Jared Jones: 57.4%
3. Chris Sale: 56.8%
4. Yu Darvish: 56.4%
5. JP Sears: 56.3%

Jones is attacking the strike zone without fear. Look at his outing against the Mets on April 16, when he threw an incredible 50 strikes in 59 pitches. Jones has only walked 3.6% of the hitters he's faced in the big leagues, giving him a 31.3-percentage point gap between his strikeout and walk rates that's the widest in the Majors, ahead of Joe Ryan, Tarik Skubal and Yoshinobu Yamamoto.

And his best stuff, that fastball and that slider, is just so good that he overwhelms hitters anyway. Jones leads the Majors with 55 swings and misses on pitches within the strike zone, where the hitter is most likely to make contact, ahead of Phillies ace Zack Wheeler. He's generating the highest swing-and-miss rate in the strike zone of any starter.

Highest in-zone whiff rate, SP, 2024
Min. 100 pitches in the strike zone

1. Jared Jones: 32.4%
2. Ryan Pepiot: 30.4%
3. Tanner Bibee: 27.5%
4. Reid Detmers: 26.1%
5. Luis Gil: 25.2%

"Being a 'thrower,' fastball-slider were the only two pitches I could really command at some points, especially in high school," Jones said. "Over the years, I've gotten better command of those two pitches."

Even from the Minors to the Majors, the leap Jones has made is huge. He always had the big strikeout numbers coming up, but his walk rate was also much higher, hovering around 10% at each level, from Single-A to Triple-A.

But in the Majors, Jones has cut that walk rate nearly threefold. He's filling up the zone with two elite pitches, just like the Pirates preach, and that's given him the freedom to let his stuff fly.

"I'm being dead serious when I say I go out and throw the ball," Jones said. "Like, grip it and rip it. It's how I've always been."