Brett Jackson

[Splendid Splinter]

Is it just me or does B Jax looks like he needs to come to the plate a little closer?? It just seems like he's away from the plate a tad too far esp. in the first AB tonight.

[Guest]

“Every day, [hitting coach James Rowson] is challenging me,” Jackson said. “It doesn’t change overnight. You’ve got some things built into your muscle memory that are hard to break. It may take a while, but I’m working every day to knock that out. I have the talent, I have the ability to be a really good hitter in this league.”

 

Jackson, who was the Cubs’ first-round pick in the 2009 First-Year Player Draft, is trying to simplify his swing, shorten his bat path and slow down some of the moving parts.

 

“I’ve always gotten away with movement because I have really fast hands, so I could move and still catch up to balls but it also leads to a lot of swings and misses and foul balls and a lot of strikeouts,” Jackson said. “We know that’s my favorite area of the game to talk about.”

 

He was laughing about strikeouts being a favorite topic. They’re not. We’ll move on.

 

http://muskat.mlblogs.com/2012/08/15/815-jackson-making-progress/

[Sammy Sofa]

I like the attitude.

[jersey cubs fan]

I like the multiple extra base hits.

[Warpticon]

I like the attitude.

 

Love the attitude. That's what it's going to take to get him righted.

[Gilby]

Brett Jackson is a handsome, handsome man.

 

Anyway, I just pray he can get that K% in the mid 20% range. It's easy to see why we were all so excited about him when you watch him on defense and when he puts the ball in play. He's got such an interesting skill set.

[hawkeyecub]

Given his overall skill set, attitude, past production/age and the group we have in charge, I'm pretty confident that they'll get the K's to at least a manageable point.

[Hairyducked Idiot]

Major league hitting is a skill that I'm not sure just attitude can help you develop.

 

We're more than halfway to the significance threshold for K-rate and he's at 51.4%. It'd be a pretty amazing adjustment if he can ever get that down below 30%.

[Ding Dong Johnson]

It would be even more amazing if it stayed over 50%.

[Lefty]

It would be even more amazing if it stayed over 50%.

 

Do pitchers even strike out 50% of the time?

[SouthSideRyan]

It would be even more amazing if it stayed over 50%.

 

Do pitchers even strike out 50% of the time?

 

AL Pitchers Kd in exactly 50% of their ABs this year. Of course, this is the worst numbers they've had since interleague play began. So yes, it would be quite amazing for Jackson's K rate to not improve.

[Tracer Bullet]

Major league hitting is a skill that I'm not sure just attitude can help you develop.

 

We're more than halfway to the significance threshold for K-rate and he's at 51.4%. It'd be a pretty amazing adjustment if he can ever get that down below 30%.

 

Do I understand correctly that you're saying we're not yet at the point where he's had enough PAs to draw any conclusions, in fact we're only about half way there, but you're drawing conclusions? Just trying to wrap my head around that one.

[Hairyducked Idiot]

Major league hitting is a skill that I'm not sure just attitude can help you develop.

 

We're more than halfway to the significance threshold for K-rate and he's at 51.4%. It'd be a pretty amazing adjustment if he can ever get that down below 30%.

 

Do I understand correctly that you're saying we're not yet at the point where he's had enough PAs to draw any conclusions, in fact we're only about half way there, but you're drawing conclusions? Just trying to wrap my head around that one.

 

It's not binary. 59 PAs isn't meaningless and 60 PAs suddenly changes everything. 51.4% in 35 PAs is enough to strongly suggest that he has a terminal (to his career) contact problem. The chance that it's variance and the true underlying K-rate is something acceptable like 30% is pretty low.

[Sammy Sofa]

Oh, who cares what Kyle thinks? Jackson will go on a hot streak for a week and Kyle will be saying he never doubted him.

[Tracer Bullet]

Major league hitting is a skill that I'm not sure just attitude can help you develop.

 

We're more than halfway to the significance threshold for K-rate and he's at 51.4%. It'd be a pretty amazing adjustment if he can ever get that down below 30%.

 

Do I understand correctly that you're saying we're not yet at the point where he's had enough PAs to draw any conclusions, in fact we're only about half way there, but you're drawing conclusions? Just trying to wrap my head around that one.

 

It's not binary. 59 PAs isn't meaningless and 60 PAs suddenly changes everything. 51.4% in 35 PAs is enough to strongly suggest that he has a terminal (to his career) contact problem. The chance that it's variance and the true underlying K-rate is something acceptable like 30% is pretty low.

 

If 60 is a "threshold" than half of 60 seems closer to meaningless than predictive. It wouldn't be surprising to me if young guys have pretty hefty improvements in k-rate in the early going. I have no idea if that's common. I just wouldn't be surprised if it is.

[El Duderino]

Rizzo struck out over 30% of the time in his time with the Padres. He's at around 13% this year.

 

Just pointing out that it's plenty possible for young players to improve contact rates.

[Beer Kaese]

I caught a few of Jackson's at bats today and it appeared the hand movement and leg kick wasn't an issue. That's the good.

 

The bad? No coaching until now?

[Cubswin11]

Rizzo struck out over 30% of the time in his time with the Padres. He's at around 13% this year.

 

Just pointing out that it's plenty possible for young players to improve contact rates.

But was Rizzo ever around 30% in the minors like Jackson was?

[Guest]

Rizzo struck out over 30% of the time in his time with the Padres. He's at around 13% this year.

 

Just pointing out that it's plenty possible for young players to improve contact rates.

But was Rizzo ever around 30% in the minors like Jackson was?

 

Jackson having the flaws in his swing exposed at a lower level doesn't make them less fixable.

[jersey cubs fan]

Rizzo struck out over 30% of the time in his time with the Padres. He's at around 13% this year.

 

Just pointing out that it's plenty possible for young players to improve contact rates.

But was Rizzo ever around 30% in the minors like Jackson was?

 

Jackson having the flaws in his swing exposed at a lower level doesn't make them less fixable.

 

Sure it does. Having his flaws exposed by lesser pitchers at earlier stages absolutely means it's more of a problem, and by definition means it will be harder to fix. Rizzo never really had a problem until his brief callup to the majors where he played in the worst park to hit in the majors. There's all sorts of reasons to expect a player in that situation to struggle, and that would include increased k rates. He never had that in the minors though. Jackson has had much higher k rates all along the way. It would be silly to pretend he doesn't have more to do, and that his problems are less fixable than Rizzo's brief bout with striking out. In Rizzo's bad major league debut he struck out at a lesser rate than Jackson did in AAA.

[Guest]

Jackson having the flaws in his swing exposed at a lower level doesn't make them less fixable.

 

Sure it does. Having his flaws exposed by lesser pitchers at earlier stages absolutely means it's more of a problem, and by definition means it will be harder to fix.

 

Mechanical changes are mechanical changes. Some are harder to implement than others, but when they are exposed has little to do with how difficult they are to fix. It's not some linear scale.

 

Rizzo never really had a problem until his brief callup to the majors where he played in the worst park to hit in the majors. There's all sorts of reasons to expect a player in that situation to struggle, and that would include increased k rates. He never had that in the minors though. Jackson has had much higher k rates all along the way. It would be silly to pretend he doesn't have more to do, and that his problems are less fixable than Rizzo's brief bout with striking out. In Rizzo's bad major league debut he struck out at a lesser rate than Jackson did in AAA.

 

Jackson has always struck out, but the goal isn't trying to get him down to a 10% K rate either. His K-rate didn't spike and performance didn't suffer until after he had about 300 AAA plate appearances. This isn't Russell Branyan striking out at 30+% through his minor league career. That doesn't make it some guarantee that Jackson will figure it out, but making adjustments to make a little more contact is not some major overhaul that's long been overdue.

[Cubswin11]

Rizzo struck out over 30% of the time in his time with the Padres. He's at around 13% this year.

 

Just pointing out that it's plenty possible for young players to improve contact rates.

But was Rizzo ever around 30% in the minors like Jackson was?

 

Jackson having the flaws in his swing exposed at a lower level doesn't make them less fixable.

That was my point, it makes them harder to fix as the contact problem has been there longer and against worse pitching. The Rizzo-Jackson comp isn't great as Jackson's k% was already high in AAA, while Rizzo's wasn't. Jackson had a k% 29% and 33% in his two years (and he started striking out at a higher rate than 33% as the season went on this year) at AAA and now is near 50% at the majors. Rizzo struggled during his callup last year but that was the first time his k% was alarming at any level, about 30%, which is where Jackson was in AAA. Rizzo was consistently between 17-21% in the minors.

Edited August 20, 2012 by Cubswin11

[jersey cubs fan]

Jackson having the flaws in his swing exposed at a lower level doesn't make them less fixable.

 

Sure it does. Having his flaws exposed by lesser pitchers at earlier stages absolutely means it's more of a problem, and by definition means it will be harder to fix.

 

Mechanical changes are mechanical changes. Some are harder to implement than others, but when they are exposed has little to do with how difficult they are to fix. It's not some linear scale.

 

Rizzo never really had a problem until his brief callup to the majors where he played in the worst park to hit in the majors. There's all sorts of reasons to expect a player in that situation to struggle, and that would include increased k rates. He never had that in the minors though. Jackson has had much higher k rates all along the way. It would be silly to pretend he doesn't have more to do, and that his problems are less fixable than Rizzo's brief bout with striking out. In Rizzo's bad major league debut he struck out at a lesser rate than Jackson did in AAA.

 

Jackson has always struck out, but the goal isn't trying to get him down to a 10% K rate either. His K-rate didn't spike and performance didn't suffer until after he had about 300 AAA plate appearances. This isn't Russell Branyan striking out at 30+% through his minor league career. That doesn't make it some guarantee that Jackson will figure it out, but making adjustments to make a little more contact is not some major overhaul that's long been overdue.

 

Who said anything about a 10% rate?

 

Jackson has had a much bigger problem striking out than Rizzo. It was pointless to try and compare Rizzo's struggles with what Jackson has been going through for much longer. And it will be harder for Jackson to fix his problems than it was for Rizzo.

[Guest]

Again, Jackson's K rate was only truly a problem in the last couple months. Maybe it can stretch back to last August since his K rate finally popped over 25%, but he was also having his best stint at any level, so I'm sure there was a hesitancy to tinker too much with his swing. The comparison to Rizzo is that a guy got promoted, had struggles he never had before, then made adjustments and now appears to have fixed the problem. The same can apply to Jackson, his baseline K rate is just higher.

[davell]

Do we think Brett can be a successful starter if he has a 30% K rate in the majors?