Atlanta Braves Scouting Report on Alex Jackson

Scouting Report

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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