Edwin Jackson

As someone who played 17 MLB seasons with 14 different teams, Edwin Jackson is probably the player you'd see next to the word "journeyman" in the dictionary.

Originally drafted out of high school as an outfielder by the Los Angeles Dodgers, Jackson converted to pitching as a teenager and becoming one of the league's premier pitching prospects. Making his MLB debut on his 20th birthday, Jackson out-dueled the four-time reigning NL Cy Young award winner, Randy Johnson, for his first career victory.

He spent parts of the next few seasons in Los Angeles before getting dealt to the Tampa Bay Rays, beginning a wild nomadic baseball career. Three years with the Rays gave way to a trade to the Detroit Tigers, where Jackson lasted just one year but earned his only career All-Star appearance. He retired Yadier Molina, Ryan Zimmerman, and Hanley Ramírez on four pitches in his lone inning of work in the Midsummer Classic.

That success in Detroit allowed him to become a key piece in the mind-bending Max Scherzer deal that sent Jackson to Arizona, where he pitched a no-hitter against his former team, the Rays.

Still with me? Just weeks after that no-hitter, Jackson was dealt to the Chicago White Sox at the 2010 trade deadline for Daniel Hudson and David Holmberg. One year later, at the 2011 deadline, Jackson got shipped to the Toronto Blue Jays, who traded him to the St. Louis Cardinals on the same day they acquired him. After that season, he finally got to choose his next destination, signing a one-year deal with the Washington Nationals in free agency. Finally, after the 2012 season, Jackson signed a four-year, $52 million deal with the Cubs.

So, just to recap, Jackson suited up for eight teams and was rostered by a ninth before his 30th birthday. We'll take a quick breather to recap his Cubs career, but the whiplash will continue after, so buckle up.

There's so much to say about Jackson's time in Chicago, but so little of it is positive. In his 2.5 seasons with the Cubs, Jackson authored a 5.37 ERA in 347 innings, comprised of 82 appearances (58 of which were starts). His -3.5 bWAR was the lowest at any stop of his career, though that was only true because the Cubs held onto him for so much longer than most of his other employers.

At the very least, his FIP (3.98) showed he was still a better pitcher than the results showed. But man, those results... his 2014 season remains one of the worst pitching displays I can remember from my lifetime. He finished the season with a 6–15 record, a 6.33 ERA over 140 2⁄3 IP, and allowed ALL OPPONENTS to hit .302 against him. That's preposterous. The collective slash line against him that season was .302/.373/.496. For context, the .869 OPS Jackson allowed that year would have ranked 13th among all MLB hitters. As you'd expect, the Cubs, who never eat dead money on contracts, released Jackson halfway through the 2015 season, accepting nearly $20 million going down the drain through 2016.

With his disastrous tenure on the North Side behind him, Jackson signed with the Atlanta Braves for the remainder of the 2015 season. Finding marginal success there, he secured a one-year deal for the league minimum with the Miami Marlins in the offseason, only to be designated for assignment in May. He would spend the rest of the 2016 season with the San Diego Padres, starting 13 games with the Friars. That makes 11 teams for the peripatetic pitcher.

His career would follow a similar pattern from then onward. Before the 2017 season began, he signed a minor league contract with the Baltimore Orioles and got menial playing time for the big league squad before getting DFA'd. He finished out the season with the Washington Nationals once again, marking his first repeat destination. It was in 2018 that Jackson finally tied Octavio Dotel's MLB record of playing for 13 different teams when he suited up for the then-Oakland Athletics.

And, just in case you thought baseball wasn't poetry, Jackson was traded back to the Blue Jays in 2019 in order to break Dotel's record — of course, Dotel being the very man Jackson was traded for in 2011 when the Blue Jays acquired and dealt him on the same day from the White Sox and to the Cardinals. When he officially took a start with Toronto on May 15, 2019, his membership on their roster was no longer technical; it was official. Jackson remains the record holder for most teams played for in a career (14).

Jackson wrapped up his big league career with another reunion tour in Detroit. He technically signed with the Diamondbacks for the 2020 season but didn't play due to the Covid-delayed season. After one year with the High Point Rockers of the Atlantic League of Professional Baseball, Jackson officially retired from professional baseball on September 10, 2022.

So, let's recap. Jackson's career was the ultimate traveler's journey, with an unsung All-Star appearance and mind-boggling 149-pitch no-hitter along the way. He was awful with the Chicago Cubs — seriously, that contract was historically bad — and yet enough teams found enough to like about Jackson that he set the MLB record in franchises played for. It's a shame that his worst numbers had to come with the Cubs, but one out of the 14 teams was always going to earn that distinction.