Scouting Report
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Size/Delivery
Jackson has a very stout build at 6’2 and 210-215 pounds.
Jackson has moved to pitching exclusively from the stretch as a reliever, with or without men on base. His leg lift is inconsistent, and I found that he was telegraphing his pitches. He would lift his leg higher when he was about to throw his breaking pitch and lower for his fastball.
During his AAA time in 2016, he was much more steady this year with the leg lift, and that was the best time to evaluate what he could do at his best delivery. He comes over the top with a very high 3/4 arm slot, nearly direct overhand.
He tucks his hip just a touch to allow that high arm slot to have just a hair of deception.
Pitches
Jackson’s calling card pitch coming into his draft season was his big fastball. He’s really not gained much to it, but moving into the bullpen has allowed the pitch to add a tick or two of velocity.
The fastball gets good plane from his high arm slot, but he doesn’t get a lot of movement on the pitch low in the zone. However, if he moves that fastball up in the zone, he does get some excellent arm side movement on the fastball, especially when the ball is roughly waist-high on a hitter.
He can run the fastball into triple digits out of the bullpen, operating most often around 96-97 as a reliever with the pitch.
His second pitch out of the bullpen is a curve, and that curve has been the big issue with his delivery issues. He gets very good spin on the pitch with a 1-7 action. When his delivery is on, he throws a tight spinning curve that sits 78-80 MPH and has a hard bite from the upper thigh to the upper shin in movement.
The issue with the curve is that it gets very loopy when he starts getting his leg lift off. The velocity also varies tremendously in that.
Jackson also mixes in a change up, but it is definitely a “show me” pitch that is best used low in the zone. He has thrown a total of 20 changes with over 350 total pitches in the major leagues.
Next: Future outlook