I’ve never been a Jennings guy. He’s always been one of those players who are drafted highly because of his scouting report as a prospect and not because of the actual production he’s produced in the majors. For example in the last three seasons, he’s never had a batting average above .259; he’s never had more than 14 home runs; he’s never scored more than 85 runs. I’m not trying to say Jennings is a bad player because Rays ballpark has suppressed his stats. The table below is a breakdown of his career home-road splits.
| Splits | AVG | OBP | SLUG | K% | BB% | HR/FB |
| Home | .235 | .323 | .396 | 19.9% | 10.2% | 9.9% |
| Away | .264 | .337 | .421 | 20.4% | 9.2% | 10.5% |
His fantasy baseball ceiling is Alex Rios (a good Alex Rios) because he certainly has the raw speed to steal 40-plus and he has shown mid-teens power the past two years. However, the evidence is mounting against him. His ground ball rate increased six percentage points to 48.3 percent, which implies the 18-plus home run power is not in the cards. In terms of batting average the home ballpark is not helping, but he’s also hitting a lot of popups; to his credit he reduced that, going from 18 percent to 12 percent. Since he has plus speed one would expect his BABIP to be higher, but with striking out and popping up 20 and 12 percent of the time respectively will suffocate the batting average. I wouldn’t be surprised if he has .330 BABIP next year, but the smart money says no.
What hurts his value the most is the signing of David DeJesus, who will most likely assume leadoff duties against righties and push Jennings down to the bottom third of the lineup. Overall, we’re talking about a player who will have the likes of Yunel Escobar and Jose Molina / Ryan Hanigan hitting behind him so his runs scored will most likely in the upper 60s, not the mid-80s; his stolen base success rate plummeted to only 71 percent, which could limit his stolen base potential. He probably will not provide more than 16 home runs if he continues to hit the ball on the ground 48 percent of the time. The upside is there, but the evidence that is mounting against him says otherwise.
If you are looking for his statistical projections please go here and download my latest projections.
