Old Time Family Baseball

(Photo by Todd Awbrey)

It must be strange to be a Washington Nationals fan. The farm system is blossoming with talent, yet the bats have yet to arrive; Jordan Zimmermann and Stephen Strasburg share immense talent and a penchant for ligament replacement surgery; and ownership is happy to spend money on top free agent talent, yet the players choose to sign elsewhere. Perhaps the Nationals never were in on Prince Fielder, Scott Swaim be damned, or perhaps they were. At this point, their process is all moot anyway. But with few big names left, the Nationals locked up Edwin Jackson for somewhere between $9 and $12 million.

Jackson is an interesting player for a number of reasons. Despite an array of above-average pitches and the ability to go 200+ innings a season, Jackson will be on his sixth team since 2008. He manages to combine the allure of talent and an air of frustration in a package that ranks 20th in fWAR among starting pitchers since 2009. Jackson ranks ahead of James Shields, Roy Oswalt, John Danks and Yovani Gallardo in that time despite being viewed as a castoff ready to be shipped to the island of misfit toys.

Jackson’s durability makes him a unique fit for the Nationals despite their apparent starting pitching depth. Their rotation currently features young arms in need of protection in Stephen Strasburg and Jordan Zimmermann, the unproven Ross Detwiler, the on-the-comeback Chien-Ming Wang, and the steady if unsexy John Lannan. Only freshly acquired Gio Gonzalez is a proven front-end starter and he is prone to fits of intense fits of wildness that would make Hunter S. Thompson blush.

The Nats even think they may have found a secret to unlocking all that gooey, delicious peanut butter filling:

“Rizzo also said on the conference call that Washington believes Jackson had a flaw in his full wind-up that allowed hitters to see the ball particularly well out of his hand, according to the Washington Post.

Indeed, last year Jackson had an anomalous season in which he was far worse with no one on base (when he’d use the full wind-up) than with runners on (when he’d pitch out of the stretch).

In 2011 Jackson allowed a .339 average, .390 on-base percentage and .478 slugging percentage with the bases empty, effectively turning every hitter into someone slightly better than Texas’ MVP candidate Michael Young (whose batting line last year was .338/.380/.474).

With at least one runner on base, however, Jackson shut down opponents, allowing a meager .239/.292/.373 batting line, effectively turning hitters into someone slightly worse than A’s catcher Kurt Suzuki (.237/.301/.385).”

Should the Nationals succeed, they could end up pushing for a place near the top of the NL East standings. Plus, if things don’t work out, the Nats can always trade Jackson. There’s proven to be a quite voracious appetite for him at deadline time the last two seasons.