The market for free agent starter Edwin Jackson appears to be pretty weak. He really hasn’t been strongly linked to any teams, but there are rumors floating around that he’s got a couple of three year deals on the table. Personally, I don’t think Jackson is a bona fide ace, and more falls into the Kyle Lohse type of a third starter…which considering Lohse’s four year deal that he got prior to the 2009 season, maybe the market for Jackson is stronger than we think.
Jackson is a good middle of the rotation arm, but he’s not some sort of ace like he’s been made out to be by certain people. CBS’s Jon Heyman, who loves his arbitrary endpoints, noted that Jackson is one of four pitchers 28 or younger to have at least 199 innings, 140 strikeouts, and a sub-4.50 ERA in each of the last three seasons, with the other three being Matt Cain, Felix Hernandez, and Tim Lincecum. Here’s another fact: Heyman’s full of garbage by grouping Jackson with those three. This is the ultimate example of why arbitrary endpoints are garbage. While Jackson does hit all of those barometers, if you decrease that ERA to 4.40, increase the innings pitched to 200, and increase the strikeouts to 150, he doesn’t make it….while the other three still do, with flying colors. Jackson’s total fWAR over the last three seasons is 11.2, which isn’t a bad number at all. But to group him with Cain (12.2), Hernandez (18.5), and Lincecum (17.3) is not only silly, but irresponsible.
But anyway, back to Jackson’s market. He’s not an ace, he’s a middle of the rotation guy that hasn’t been able to call a team his own for more than just a couple of seasons, being with a total of six in his career (four of which have come over the last three seasons). CJ Wilson, a contemporary to Jackson in age alone, got five years and $77.5 million from the Angels. But then again, the ceiling with Wilson is much higher, as he’s accrued 10.5 fWAR in just two seasons as a starter. I think a better matchup could be Mark Buerhle, who has more experience than Jackson, but has been worth roughly the same value (10.5 fWAR over the last three years). Neither guy is an extreme strikeout artist, but Buerhle’s control is much better than Jackson’s. Both are pretty solid inningis eaters, and have roughly the same strand and groundball rates. Buerhle got four years and $58 million from the Marlins, but the general consensus is that they overspent.
So where does this leave Jackson? He’s really got two options at this point: take one of these supposed three year deals on the table, and probably take less money in the process, or take a shorter term deal for more money per season. With Jackson seemingly learn how to pitch over the last two seasons (3.71 FIP), it might not be totally out there for him to take the shorter deal in an effort to rebuild his value. However, he definitely won’t be the cream of the free agent crop, with Cole Hamels and Matt Cain heading to free agency next offseason, and Tim Lincecum heading there in 2013.
Jackson is in a difficult spot right now, and things haven’t really played out for him the way that he imagined. I think he’s going to have to settle for a team that needs a middle rotation starter, and one that will probably pay him as such. No team is going to pay him as an ace, because all of the teams that needed a top-line pitcher has already gotten one, either through trade or free agency.
