It’s one thing to be talented enough to go to an institution like Stanford to play baseball. It’s another to go to Stanford for both baseball and football, and that’s the story of Brock Jones.
Jones was a tremendous athlete coming out of Buchanan High School in Clovis, California. He decided to stay home and dual-sport with football and baseball at Stanford, in which he ultimately gave up on football to focus on the diamond, and scouts say that’s when his game “took off.”
Jones debuted on February 14, 2020. He started all 16 games of the season, before COVID-19 instantly wreaked havoc on the season. This, of course was the same season as his days earlier in the year playing safety for the Cardinals’ football team.
Then, as the scouts’ reflected, his baseball game took off the following season. Jones went from 13 to 64 hits, 4 to 62 RBI’s, and 1 to 18 home runs; simply, incredible stuff. Because of these drastic changes in his performance, Jones was able to pick up a few accolades, including All Pac-12 First Team, Baseball America All-America Second Team, and D1Baseball All-America Second-Team.
In his most recent season at Stanford, Jones attempted to build off of his success from the year prior, but struggled to a degree, and did not perform the same way that he once did. He tallied 82 total hits, 78 runs, and 57 RBI’s.
The consensus among scouts and analysts is that you’ll get swing and misses with Jones, but ultimately with instruction and reps, he has a high possibility of being successful within the Tampa Bay Rays farm system.