San Francisco Giants general manager Bobby Evans said on Friday that landing a center fielder was the team’s top priority. He took care of that on Monday by adding Austin Jackson, according to Jon Heyman.
The defensive specialist will get $6 million for the next two seasons. He could make as much as $8.5 million through incentives.
Sources: Austin Jackson to giants. 6M, 2 Years. Elevators coukd take it to 8.5M.
— Jon Heyman (@JonHeyman) January 23, 2018
Last season, Jackson hit .318/.387/.482 for the Cleveland Indians. He was worth 1.9 wins above replacement, according to Baseball Reference.
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Jackson was expected to get much more in the open market, but this has been a different kind of free agency period.
Austin Jackson was a two-win player last year. That’s worth somewhere in the neighborhood of $15M in value for one season. He got a total of $6M guaranteed for two seasons. The bottoming out of this market is staggering, and what’s scary is that this is just the beginning. https://t.co/5VTE4am20v
— Jeff Passan (@JeffPassan) January 23, 2018
The Giants will get the kind of player they wanted: A veteran who can play solid defense every day but isn’t so good (or expensive) he’ll block Steven Duggar from making an impact on the major-league squad when he’s ready.
It could also open up opportunities for a platoon in center field if Jackson can stay hot against left-handed pitchers in 2018. Last season, he hit .325/.440/.574 in 141 plate appearances against southpaws. But fans should beware the small-sample-size bias in those statistics, because Jackson’s career numbers are much worse: He’s .267/.343/.404 over his career against lefties.
The majority of Jackson’s at-bats have come from the leadoff spot. Projected starting lineup for the Giants on Opening Day:
- Jackson, 8
- Joe Panik, 4
- Andrew McCutchen, 9
- Evan Longoria, 5
- Buster Posey, 2
- Brandon Belt, 3
- Brandon Crawford, 6
- Hunter Pence, 8
- Madison Bumgarner, 1
jpalmer@sfexaminer.com
