Atlanta Braves Scouting Report on C/OF Alex Jackson

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Feb 25, 2015; Mesa, AZ, USA; A mitt and bat are carried during an Oakland Athletics workout at Fitch Park. Mandatory Credit: Joe Camporeale-USA TODAY Sports /

The Atlanta Braves acquired outfielder Alex Jackson from the Seattle Mariners along with a player to be named for Robert Whalen and Max Povse, two fairly advanced pitching prospects. Will he be worth the cost the team paid?

Who Is He?

The Atlanta Braves were certainly aware of Jackson as a high schooler. He was arguably the most-hyped high school hitter since Bryce Harper, twice being selected as an Under Armour All American, the first (and still only) time that had happened (take into mind that UA All-American awards haven’t been around THAT long, though). The Mariners were more than happy to have Jackson fall to them at the 6th pick in the 2014 draft.

However, even before the draft, it wasn’t consensus that Jackson was a no-doubt guy in the same vein as Harper by any means, and there were some significant questions about the added size he put on between his junior and senior years. Keith Law of ESPN put up an excellent article just ahead of the draft profiling Jackson and fellow San Diego area prep Brady Aiken, who ended up going #1 in the draft that season and causing all kinds of issues when the Astros reneged on their verbal agreement due to worries on his elbow.

The Mariners started Jackson at their Arizona Rookie League team in 2014, and he showed the good and bad in his game, as he slashed .280/.344/.476 with 10 extra base hits in just 94 plate appearances. However, the “forced loft” that was being discussed leading into the draft showed up in his swing and miss as he struck out 25.53% of the time, which is quite high for a guy who had a plus grade on his contact ability coming into the draft.

In 2015, the Mariners skipped Jackson over their advanced rookie league team straight to their short-season team in the Northwest League. He showed much of the same issue there, hitting .239/.365/.466 before a promotion to low-A Clinton in the Midwest League, where he really struggled to a .453 OPS.

All together in his 2015 season, he made 318 trips to the plate, with a combined .207/.318/.365 line. He hit 17 doubles, a triple, and 8 home runs. His walk rate of 8.5% wasn’t exceptional, but it was acceptable. However, his strikeout rate continued to balloon, to 30.19% combined.

The Mariners had him repeat Clinton in 2016, and he had some improvement, slashing .243/.332/.408 with 20 doubles, a triple, and 11 home runs. He had a 8.9% walk rate and a 27% strikeout rate.

Next: Jackson's scouting report

Another #LumberKing is on the move. 1st rd pick and 2015/16 LumberKing Alex Jackson sent to @Braves https://t.co/dBtoLzRd6l pic.twitter.com/FcNzgOWiqu
— Clinton LumberKings (@LumberKings) November 30, 2016

Scouting Report

More from Tomahawk Take

Jackson is listed at 6’2 and 215 pounds on his Baseball Reference page, but I’d wager he’s more like 225-235 now. From the video of him as a junior, he’s added significant lower-half weight, which could play well if harnessed well into power, but does definitely affect his athleticism and potential ability to catch.

Hitting

Jackson stands tall in the box with minimal movement. He starts with an open stance, taking a slight step toward the plate in his lower half.

The movement in his upper half is more the issue. He starts with his hands in front of his face, then loads long to the back side before coming through the zone with a big, exaggerated follow through.

I watched a number of games with Jackson this season, and interestingly, Jackson seemed to have the number of the best pitcher he faced all season, Yadier Alvarez, the Dodgers pitching prospect. However, outside of that, it was notable that he struggled against premium velocity due to that long load. He even struggled against Alvarez when he kept the ball knee high to belt high, but he missed in one game low and outside, allowing Jackson’s long swing to get extension and in the playoffs of the Midwest League, Alvarez attempted to bury a swing-and-miss pitch below the knees that Jackson golfed out for two home runs on Alvarez on the season.

Jackson had a plus grade on his hit tool coming out of high school, and it’s hard to see how at this point. Going back to high school video, you see a much more compact, quick swing, with a bit of loft at the end. That swing absolutely would indicate more contact.

The power is obvious for Jackson, and when he gets everything together at the same time, it’s a pure 70 grade power that the ball absolutely explodes off of his bat. However, getting his larger lower half and more busy swing all synced up is not a frequent thing, something I saw just once in the entirety of my video on him (a pitch he hit foul, but hit completely out of the stadium). The fact that he hit 11 regular season home runs and another in the playoffs tells you just how much power he has when he doesn’t sync up that often and can still power 12 balls out of the park in roughly 400 plate appearances.

Base Running/Fielding

Jackson as a high schooler was a guy who had a 45-55 run tool depending on which scout was looking at him as he was considered a fairly premium athlete overall. A transition to outfield was expected to go fairly well because of that athleticism.

However, in his added build, it seems that Jackson has added a lot of strength without building the flexibility and speed in his new musculature that you’d hope a guy would develop.

Due to that lack of flexibility and quick-twitch, he’s not going to be a guy to steal you many bases. He does, however, have average running speed after he gets a few steps into it, and he did show some decent instincts on the bases, making a few first-to-third runs without tremendous effort.

In the outfield, Jackson uses a plus arm to make up for his lack of quick instincts. He does have that same solid speed once he is underway, though, which allows him to catch up to mistakes on reads fairly quickly.

Regarding a possible transition behind the plate, Jackson has filled out tremendously in the lower half since his junior year. That’s taken away flexibility and quick-twitch that will be needed behind the plate for sure. While that’s not “bad” weight, he’ll need to drop some to be able to make it behind the plate, which will likely be at least a full year’s work just to get to that point.

Then he’d have to rebuild the catching instincts and skills behind the plate, which were just okay before. His arm is very good still, which would play behind the plate, but getting to that arm through footwork and receiving well will be an extended process that would likely mean that Jackson didn’t make an appearance in Atlanta until at least 2021 at the very soonest.

Video

Next: Future outlook

Sep 28, 2016; St. Louis, MO, USA; Cincinnati Reds left fielder Adam Duvall (23) hits a two run single against the St. Louis Cardinals in the third inning at Busch Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Scott Rovak-USA TODAY Sports /

Future Outlook

Finding a comparison for Jackson was ridiculously difficult. Will he be a catcher? Will he be an outfielder? Will he he return to his previous swing or keep his big, looping swing as he uses currently?

In the end, I found two that made different levels of sense. Adam Duvall is the first I looked at due to a similar build and similar skill set in the outfield – led by a big arm, good athlete, but slow first step. Duvall did a ton of work this offseason with the Reds that turned him into a legit Gold Glove-caliber outfielder. He’ll likely move to right field this coming season as the Reds bring up Jesse Winker, a hitter that could be an elite leadoff/contact hitter in their lineup but who has limited defensive skills in the outfield.

With a bit of cleaning up the front-end load of Jackson’s swing, he and Duvall would have very similar swings, and we just saw Duvall clear 30 home runs at the major league level with high-end corner outfield defense. That’d be fairly high end value for Jackson to achieve.

There just is simply not a current catcher that I could find that made sense, but there is a guy who did once play the position – Mike Napoli. Napoli has become a hired gun sort at this point of his career, a guy who provides right handed power but is limited to 1B/DH. However, he spent a number of years as the same type of hitter behind the plate until his legs just couldn’t handle the position anymore.

He was used well by the Angels at that time at the position, using him exclusively at catcher and DH in his first five years in the league before moving him to a half-time catcher and half-time first baseman, something he continued for two more seasons with the Rangers before going to first base full time. He was never an excellent defender behind the plate, but he was adequate, and his offense made it work, especially when he could be paired with a defensive specialist in a roughly 50/50 split behind the plate.

Napoli and Jackson also have similar physical builds, with big lower half builds that make catching a challenge as a long-term consideration. He did see more wear on his lower half mean that he had to do some adjusting to his swing that led his strikeout rate to spike later in his career, but if you look at his early career, he was a guy that walked roughly 13% of the time and struck out around 25% of the time, which would be perfectly acceptable with big power from an average catcher.

Next: Braves Minor League Database

My personal opinion on Jackson is that he’s a guy that is a long way off no matter how you stack it looking at him now. However, if he were to have a year that he jumped 2-3 levels because it “clicked”, I certainly believe that would be as an outfielder, not a catcher. The Atlanta Braves are well regarded around the league for their defensive instruction both at catcher and the outfield, so I really believe he could be a solid defender at either position in the Braves system with the coaching the Braves have in the minor leagues.

Really, if you’re down on Braxton Davidson, it’s hard to understand being high on Jackson, outside of being blinded by a two year old draft position. Both were first rounders in 2014, with Davidson being six months younger and having played at high-A already along with accumulating over 400 more plate appearances in his minor league career than Jackson. They have similar numbers across the board thus far as well. Both have similar defensive profiles in that they could be solid defenders in a corner with their arm being the best part of their defense.

Where Jackson is sent is all predicated on what position he plays. I’d wager he goes to the new Florida Fire Frogs team in high-A if they keep him in the outfield, but if he moves to catcher, I could see him once again not playing a full season, spending time in extended spring before going to his third year at the low-A level, though in the South Atlantic League instead of the Midwest League.

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Atlanta Braves Scouting Report on Alex Jackson