Atlanta Braves Scouting Report on Alex Jackson

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.