How the Cleveland Indians Are Unlocking More Production from Austin Jackson

Cleveland Indians v Baltimore Orioles

What a difference a year can make.

Last spring training while the Indians were dealing with Michael Brantley’s shoulder surgery holding him back and Abraham Almonte being suspended for 50 games. They were bringing in Marlon Byrd along with a cast of other journeymen outfielders.

Austin Jackson was still a free agent coming off a pretty poor year split between the Cubs and Mariners. The White Sox gave him $5 million a bit into spring training and given the Indians questionable outfield situation, many fans were dismayed they didn’t go after him. Some even called it “borderline irresponsible.”

On Twitter, we had our fun with that headline and statement as Jackson struggled on the field and eventually up on the disabled list and needing knee surgery (not having fun with him needing surgery but predictably playing poorly).

When the Indians picked up Jackson on a minor league deal during camp this year, it made a little more sense since as long as an older player isn’t taking away at bats for a prospect, there’s no such thing as a bad minor league deal.

While I thought that if he was healthy by the end of camp the Indians would roster him, I didn’t expect to see him on August 16 with the Indians still. He’s still here because of a career high slash line – .313/.383/.490.

At 30 years old coming off of major knee surgery and even with two DL stints in 2017, how is Jackson posting these career numbers?

For starters, his 11.1% walk rate is a career high. That accounts for the walks – or does it?

How the Cleveland Indians Are Unlocking More Production from Austin Jackson

Jackson’s swinging strike rate is right around his career average and is even up from last year (7.5%). His contact rate is around his career average . Chase rate? It was 26% last year so no real big changes there.

What may be helping Jackson draw more walks while keeping about the same strikeout rate but not improving elsewhere is his approach. This year Jackson is averaging 4.41 pitches per plate appearance. He doesn’t have enough plate appearances to be counted on the league leaderboards but if he did he’d rank third just behind Aaron Judge and Curtis Granderson and just above players like Jose Bautista, Anthony Rendon and Matt Carpenter.

Once again Jackson is also maintaining a high BABIP (.378). That’s not unusual for him. His career BABIP is .344. However in the past that seemed to come with the caveat of speed. Jackson is still an above league average runner (27.4 spring speed) but his speed has slipped in years (28.1 f/s in 2015 and 2016). Jackson only has four infield hits this year so it’s not as if speed, even if he’s lost a step and is still above league average, is inflating his BABIP.

The Indians seemed to have unlocked another platoon monster in Jackson.

The funny thing is Jackson has never had big splits vs. left or right handed pitching. In fact for this career, the 30-year old has a 102 wRC+ vs. LHPs and RHPs, a.735 OPS vs. LHP and .734 OPS vs. RHP.

But this year Jackson has had the platoon advantage more percentage of the time than he has at any point in his career. Maybe that has something to do with the quality of his at bats and seeing more pitches per plate appearance. It’s worked to Jackson and the Indians’ favor.

How the Cleveland Indians Are Unlocking More Production from Austin Jackson

To speak further to Jackson having better success vs. LHP this year because of the platoon advantage a larger percent of the time is that he’s avoiding soft contact (8.1% is the second lowest of his career).

Jackson also seems to be another fly ball revolutionary (even if his homers aren’t up). His 40.2% fly ball rate is way up from his career 31.5% rate to go along with 41% groundball rate that’s down from a career 44.6% mark as well.

Hit the ball harder and hit it in the air?

Sounds like a pretty good combination to success.

While Jackson’s not showing off the speed or aggressiveness on the bases last year (he’s 1-for-1 on steals) perhaps because of injuries and losing a step, his bat is adding plenty of a value. Before his 3-run homer on Tuesday night Jackson had a 1.18 WPA mark this year. So even without speed and defense (-2 DRS and -11.4 UZR/150), he’s making plenty of impact with the bat, sitting at 1.0 fWAR.

To compare, Rajai Davis last year actually had a -0.26 WPA for the Indians and only giving them 0.4 fWAR and below average help defensively. Despite all his stolen bases, which did add an element to the Indians offense and he did hit one of the most memorable homers in Indians history, Jackson is already outperforming Davis. While the Indians may miss Davis’ speed and Jackson doesn’t have the speed and defense he used to have, they once again took another player on a make-good deal and they’re putting him in a position to succeed and help the team win.

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