Austin Jackson is off to a fine start in his rookie season. We were told he was ready to be a major league center fielder but he has exceeded expectations so far. It's too early to look at any defensive numbers but he appears to have very good extincts and his range looks exceptional. He is also producing offensively. With two more hits tonight, he is now batting .325 with a .385 on-base percentage. He's even showing some power with eight extra base hits and a .470 slugging average.
The only chink in his armor so far has been his eye raising 32 strikeouts in 19 games. He struck out twice tonight stretching his strikeout streak to 19 games. According to retrosheet, no player has struck out in that many consecutive games to begin his career since 1952 (day by day logs are not available prior to that season). He is on a pace for 259 strikeouts which would blow away Mark Reynolds's record setting 223 whiffs last year.
The strikeouts are a concern but they would be a bigger concern if he was not also on a pace to get 219 hits. It's been feast or famine for Jackson in April. The speedy outfielder has 27 hits and 32 strikeouts in 83 at bats. So, he has had only only 24 at bats that have been not hits or strikeouts. That translates into a .500 batting average on balls in play (BABIP). If you've heard people say that a .500 BABIP is not sustainable, it's because no player has finished above .400 since Jose Hernandez had a .404 BABIP for the Brewers in 2002.
What's the closest anybody has ever come to a 200 hit 200 strikeout season? According to Lee Sinnis's Baseball Encyclopedia, Bobby Bonds had 200 hits and 189 strikeouts in 1970. Reynolds had only 150 hits to go with his 223 strikeouts last year. Obviously, Jackson won't keep up his strikeout or BABIP pace for the whole season and it's highly unlikely he'll be the first 200/200 man but he's had a pretty bizarre start to his rookie season. And overall, it's been a very good one.
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It looks to me if Jackson is not ready as a hitter. Your statistics clinch it for me. When his BABIP comes back to earth, so will his batting average.
ReplyDeleteThe strikeouts are not new. They are the reason the Yankees gave up on him.
The league pitchers are going to all zero in on the holes in his swing. His OBP will be below .330 by the end of June. He may stick as a 9th hitter because of his defense, if Casper Wells is also not ready.
-john scott
Strikeouts are fine with me. Better than DPs. I wish Mags would strikeout more. Ajax is obviously a stud and I'm glad to have him. Grandy was a great guy and good player. But he had his own clutch issues, too. As far as I'm concerned Ajax is 5x better than Grandy as a baserunner. And that mattered quite a bit in our 163 game last year. Definitely hope Granderson succeeds with Yanks, but also am happier with Ajax in CF for Tigs.
ReplyDeleteJackson is a fun player to watch so far. While I like Raburn and Thomas they can't seem to run down a ball and catch over their shoulder-especially near the wall. Jackson is not showing that weakness.
ReplyDelete"It's too early to look at any defensive numbers but he appears to have very good extincts . . ", I hope he uses his extincts against the Twins. (You can, of course, delete, or edit this comment after you correct.)
Thanks for all the comments. I was skeptical of Jackson before the season and I'm still cautious but I like what I see so far. His defense is outstanding and he has a little more power than I expected. Because of the strikeouts, I expect a long nasty slump at some point this year and he'll have to adjust. We'll find out more about him when we see how he responds to something like that.
ReplyDeleteLee
Lee