POTD Edwin Jackson - Dr's Diagnosis
=== Non-SABR Society Dept. ===
"Statistics are by their very nature backwards-looking" - the Founding Father
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Analyze Jackson's historical Sw% trends to a fare-thee-well?, and they're still not going to tell you how well Jackson is going to deploy his smoking fastball and crackling slider in 2010, much less in 2013.
Pitchers go through plateaus, and then leap (or not) to the next one. Trying to use SABR to forecast young super-talents like Jackson and Morrow is a fool's errand. SABR will tell you two things about them: (1) they have huge potential. (2) We don't know when, or whether, they'll achieve it.
Bill James, who has forecasted literally hundreds of young talents since 1980, will tell you the same thing about most of them. (1) It's fair to expect them to break through. (2) Assuming that you can guess when -- such as next year, for example -- is irrational.
Hitters are different. Their career arcs are far smoother and far more predictable. They pile up pitch recognition and get better.
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=== History 101 Dept. ===
PHASE ONE: Jackson was a minor-league A-List celebrity. CC Sabathia, Edwin Jackson, Felix Hernandez, Jon Lester, they were all pretty much the same type of commodity in the minors. That's the class that Jackson was in.
If the minors were the movies, Jackson would have been Will Smith. You can't ask for a pitcher the scouts went more ga-ga over.
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PHASE TWO: Jackson was promoted to the bigs early, beat Randy Johnson as a 20-year-old rookie -- and then suffered weekly crucifixions from then on.
He heaved one fastball after another down the middle, got sprained necks from watching them leave faster than they came in ... and was a terrible, terrible (super-talented) pitcher all the way through the end of the 2008 season. His Shandler BPV's were worse than Silva's and Batista's* in 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008.
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PHASE THREE: Jackson suddenly and "shockingly" parachuted in as one of the best pitchers in the game, 1H 2009.
Not one of the pitchers with the best ERA's: one of the best pitchers in the game. 120 innings, 100 strikeouts, control ratio of 3:1, low homers, an ace for a division leader, a guy with nuclear stuff, using it to methodically mow down opposing lineups.
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PHASE FOUR: Jackson regressed to only "good" in 2H 2009 -- 6+ strikeouts, almost 4 walks, too many HR's....
BUT: do not overreact to this second-half fade. All normal (non-HOF) aces have better months and worse months. Jackson's second half was perfectly in line as "the lesser half-a-year for a young TOR starter."
Jackson's regression was probably due to three things:
1. Tiring arm.
2. Reportedly tipping his slider.
3. Jackson is not done developing.
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=== Pitcher Family ===
Jackson is in the Nolan Ryan family, blow-em-away-righties who will give you the walk.
He works off of two great pitches. Dr. D is very, very partial to this kind of pitcher -- Josh Beckett, Kerry Wood, Nolan Ryan, Randy Johnson, Erik Bedard, the young Dwight Gooden.
It's simply easier to get a feel for 2 pitches than for four.
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Jackson's FB, per fangraphs, averaged 94.5 mph last year and that is as good as it gets. On TV you'll frequently see him sit 95-97 touching 99. Jackson's fastballs have hair on them.
But, you probably knew, Jackson's slider is much more effective than his FB. His slider, in 2008-09, had pitch values similar to those of Erik Bedard's slider (2.9 runs per 100 pitches in 2008 and 1.9 in 2009).
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When Jackson was lousy, he tried to heave his FB by hitters 75% of the time, and got blasted -- for example, 2005, the dummy threw 75.5% fastballs and gave up a run value of -1.8 runs per 100 fastballs on them.
He started getting good, as SSI readers would expect, when he started using his slider a lot. In 2008 his slider run value spiked up, and then in 2009 he put it together: only 65% fastballs, the rest* sliders, and he dominated.
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