Why Jackson Jobe’s Control Isn’t A Worry

In 2023, Jobe’s walk rate was literally the best in the minors. Jobe walked 0.84 batters per nine innings, which made him the only full-season MiLB pitcher with 40 or more innings pitched with a sub-1.0 BB/9. Very rarely do we see one of the best and hardest-throwing pitchers in the minors also rank among the walk-rate leaders.

This year it would seem like that control deserted him. In 2024, Jobe walked 4.5 batters per nine innings, well above the 4.1 BB/9 average of the full-season minor leagues. His 12% walk percentage was also above the MiLB average of 10.6%.

So is this a case of a pitcher struggling to adapt to the smaller strike zone of the upper levels of the minors?

Not really. When it comes to strike-throwing, Jobe remains well above-average. And when it comes to the consistency of how Jobe misses the zone, he’s also above-average. 

When you talk about a young pitcher who has control problems, you picture a pitcher who misses his target by a foot or more, not one who is nibbling on the edges. That doesn’t describe Jobe.

Here are the pitch plots for two pitching prospects this year. One of these is Jobe (4.5 BB/9) and the other is Michael McGreevy (2.6 BB/9), who is now in the majors with the Cardinals.

Going purely off walk rate, one would think that McGreevy is around the zone much more consistently than Jobe. But which of these two pitch plots from SynergySports looks like a pitcher who is around the zone more consistently?

McGreevy is the left plot, while Jobe is the right plot. This is where a stat like walks per nine, while very useful, can be a little misleading. Despite Jobe’s above-average walk rate, his command is advanced for his age, and his walk rate is as much a function of approach as wildness.

Jobe threw strikes with 65.5% of his pitches this year. That’s a drop from his astronomically high 70% strike percentage in 2023, but it’s still far above the 62% strike percentage that was MiLB average for full-season pitchers.

Pitchers who throw this many strikes as a rule don’t walk many batters. Let’s use a strike rate of 64.5% as the cutoff for a quick study. Taking every MiLB pitcher with 1,500+ pitches in a season in the full-season minor leagues from 2016-2024 with that strike rate or better, the average walk rate was just 6.0%. The MiLB walk rate in 2024 is 10.6% in comparison.

Among the 1,324 pitcher seasons that fit the study’s criteria, Taylor Widener (2017), Matt Manning (2018), Brailyn Marquez (2019), Spencer Strider (2021), Mitchell Parker (2023) and Jobe (2024) are the only pitchers to have a season with a walk rate above 10% with a strike percentage of 64.5% or better. 

It gets even weirder for Jobe. He has the highest strike percentage (65.5%) of anyone from 2016-2024 with a 10% walk rate and he also has the highest walk rate (12%).

So the two numbers don’t really match. But the path of the previous pitchers who fit this very odd club seems to show that when the strike percentage and the walk rate seem so at odds with each other, the walk rate generally seems to be the faulty indicator.

Widener saw his strike rate stay the same while his walk rate dipped by nearly a walk per nine innings the following season. Widener did have to nibble in the majors, and walks have been an issue in his MLB career (4.5 BB/9). If you want to count him as one where his walk rate proved to be a concern, feel free.

A shoulder injury unfortunately ended Marquez’s career in 2020, so nothing can be gleaned from his development. He barely got to pitch again after 2019.

The other three all have seen their walk rates get much better.

Manning saw his walk rate go from 3.9 BB/9 in 2018 to 2.8 BB/9 in 2019. His MLB walk rate has been 3 BB/9. Manning has struggled at times in the majors, but control has yet to be a problem.

Parker’s walk rate went from 4.4 BB/9 and a 11.3% walk percentage in the minors in 2023 to 2.6 BB/9 and a 6.7% walk rate in the majors in 2024. He’s made 29 starts for the Nationals this year while demonstrating above-average control.

Strider went from a 3.8 BB/9 and a 10.3% walk rate in the minors to a 3.1 BB/9 and an 8.5% walk rate in the majors in 2022 and 2.8 BB/9 and a 7.6% walk rate in 2023. Control has not been a problem for one of the better pitchers in the National League.

So there is some reason to believe that Jobe’s 2024 walk rate is a blip. Jobe is throwing significantly more strikes than the average MiLB pitcher, and walking more batters, largely because of his approach.

When Jobe has been behind in the count this year (1-0, 2-0, 3-0, 2-1, 3-1 counts) he threw strikes with 74% of his pitches (the MiLB average was 66%). He also allowed nine walks in 47 plate appearances. That may seem to be contradictory, but Jobe wasn’t going to throw a down-the-middle cookie to avoid a walk. He still worked the edges of the plate. Often he succeeded, but he also would rack up some walks as well.

When the hitter was ahead, Jobe only gave up one extra-base hit all season, a home run by Carter Bins on a 1-0 cutter up in the zone. Hitters hit .237/.383/.316 against him this year when the plate appearance was finished while Jobe was behind in the count. Generally, that’s when hitters do their most damage. Across the minors, hitters hit .279/.505/.458 when ahead in the count.

Jobe had 36 of his 45 walks in 3-2 counts. He had a 64% strike rate in those situations, and he gave up three extra-base hits in full counts. Hitters hit .182/.609/.333 against him. The MiLB average is .178/.486/.284 in those situations. It’s pretty much the one situation where Jobe was a below-average MiLB pitcher.

Now, when Jobe was ahead in the count, he was also hard to hit, but his strike percentage dropped to 60% (the MiLB average was 60% as well). He relied heavily on his changeup and sliders in those situations. His strikeout rate when ahead was 41% in those situations (MiLB average is 40%), but a patient hitter could take changeups and sliders out of the zone to get back into an even count. Hitters hit only .142/.154/.220 in those situations, but they could win by sometimes keeping their bat on their shoulder. 

Of the 504 pitches Jobe threw when ahead in the count, 40% (200 pitches) were taken as balls. Another 20% (100 pitches) were pitches out of the strike zone (as tracked by SynergySports) that hitters swung at, including 12% (62 pitches) that were well out of the zone. Of the 229 swings he got in those situations, only 56% (129 pitches) came on pitches in the strike zone.

So Jobe very rarely gives in when he’s behind in counts. He throws tons of strikes, but he avoids throwing hittable pitches in those situations, and so he’ll trade walks for avoiding hard contact. When he’s ahead in counts, he’ll try to get a strikeout, and he’s willing to accept some walks in return.

Batters hit .178/.282/.262 against Jobe. He had a 2.36 ERA. When Jobe walked a batter, he very rarely came back to haunt him. Hiters had just seven extra-base hits with runners on base against Jobe all year.

So yes, Jobe did walk a lot of hitters this year, but that doesn’t mean he has below-average control.