Warner Jones checks in at No. 74 in the VandySports 100.
Honors and awards: 2013 Southeastern Conference Player of the Week (May 20)
2014 first-team All-America (ACBA, Baseball America, second team by NCBWA and Collegiate Baseball)
2004 first team All-SEC
2004 All-SEC tournament
2004 All-Charlottesville Regional
2004 National Hitter of the Week and SEC Player of the Week (March 29, 2004)
In the VU record book: Single-season hits: first (111, 2004)
Single-season RBIs: tied-first (74, 2004)
Single-season batting average: fourth (.414, 2004)
Doubles in a season: tied-first (27, 2004)
Before VU: Was a three-time all-state pick at Nashville's Montgomery Bell Academy and a four-time all-region honoree. Hit .505 with four home runs, 11 doubles, 26 RBIs and eight steals as a senior, leading the Big Red to a third-place finish in the Tennessee Division II state championships. Won Region 4 Player of the Year that season. Hit .511 with four homers, 10 doubles, 31 RBIs and 24 steals as a junior. Perfect Game ranked him the No. 88 player in the Class of 2002.
Freshman (2003): Started all 55 games, with 33 in left, 16 in center and six in right, fielding .969 for the season. Team went 27-28 (14-14 SEC) and made the SEC tournament for the first time in seven years. Hit .289/.294/.380 in SEC regular-season play. Led the team in hits (70) and at-bats (227). Won SEC Player of the Week after going 8-for-12 in the Tennessee series, with a double and four RBIs. Had seven total bases vs. Michigan State and LSU.
Sophomore (2004): Started all 64 games at second for a 45-19 (16-14) squad that advanced to the Austin Super Regional and finished runner-up at the SEC tournament. Hit .390/.431/.602 in SEC regular-season games, with three homers, 23 RBIs and 21 runs scored, while fielding .977. Won the SEC batting title and was the only player in the league to hit over .400. Led the NCAA with 111 hits. Hit .467 in 15 at-bats in the Charlottesville Regional. Hit .421 in 107 at-bats with runners on, and was 5-for-10 with the bases loaded. Had a 32-game hitting streak spanning two seasons, and reached base in 41-straight games during that time. Hit two home runs vs. Kentucky on May 23. Was 14-for-19 (.737) for a four-game week that included a sweep of No. 24 Georgia, which earned him SEC Player of the Week. Was 5-for-10 in the Mississippi State series and 7-for-12 (.583) with two runs against Ole Miss. Went 7-for-13 in the Baylor series with two doubles and an RBI. Knocked in 25 runs in the first 10 games.
Junior (2005): Started all 55 games at second for a 34-21 (13-17) team that missed the SEC and NCAA tournaments, despite finishing with a No. 20 RPI against the 10th-toughest schedule. Battled a painful wrist injury much of the season. Fielded .984 in all games and .992 in league contests. Hit .258/.281/.402 in SEC play. Had 11 multiple-hit and four multiple-RBI games.
Post-VU: Detroit took Jones in Round 17 of the 2005 MLB Draft. Jones pursued law school instead and never played professionally. He now works in estate planning.
Final thoughts, and why I ranked him where I did: Jones was a unique player. He walked just 21 times (2.7 percent of his career plate appearances) and three of those were intentional. He struck out in just 9.8 percent of his plate appearances. I haven't completely researched this, but, I think he is the only player in coach Tim Corbin's tenure to start every game of his career.
Jones's spot in this ranking is almost 100 percent because of his 2014 season. His single-season hits record is made more impressive by the fact that VU didn't make the College World Series in 2004, and a .414 average is impressive under any conditions in any era. Of course, Jones never walked and so that hurts his production numbers; adjusting for run-scoring environment across college baseball, Bill James's runs created per 27 outs formula ranks his season as the 16th-best individual campaign in the Corbin era for players who had at least 250 plate appearances. That formula doesn't account for hitting with men on base, which would almost certainly elevate that season.
However, Jones's s other two seasons (3.6 and 4.2 RC/27) were well below average (teams averaged 6.1 runs per game across college baseball in those seasons). I cut Jones some slack because of the wrist injury in 2005, and to his credit he played through the pain and never took a day off in that time. He was also a good defender who had a hand in 66 double plays in his two years at second.
Jones had a historic season for the team that made the school's first NCAA tournament in 24 seasons, and established that VU could be something of a factor on the national scene. That's enough to put him solidly in our top 100.
* "RC/ARC-27" are how many runs a player "created" per 27 outs, according to a Bill James formula. The first is a player's raw total for that season, and the second is the same number adjusted to an average run-scoring environment from 2003-19.
