The Padres have released righty Jay Jackson so that he can sign with the Hiroshima Toyo Carp in Japan, MLB.com’s Corey Brock tweets. Jackson had been on the Padres’ 40-man roster since September. This marks the second time this week that the Padres have lost a reliever to Japan — Marcos Mateo appears set to sign with the Hanshin Tigers.
The 28-year-old Jackson made his big-league debut in 2015, pitching 4 1/3 innings and striking out four while allowing three runs and one walk. The hard thrower spent most of the season with Triple-A El Paso, posting a 2.54 ERA with 9.9 K/9 and 2.4 BB/9 over 63 2/3 innings. Jackson, formerly a top prospect with the Cubs, is also a veteran of the Marlins, Pirates and Brewers systems.
How bad does your team have to appear to the players that were expected to make the 25 man roster that they jump ship and go to Japan?
Some on the Padres board and local talk radio hosts had even spoke of the possibility of Jackson stepping into a late inning spot in the bullpen. Now he and Mateo, another hard-throwing reliever, are gone to Japan. Ouch!!
It’s almost as if the front office isn’t relying on talk radio hosts and message board commenters to have the best scouting reports and most incisive ideas about bullpen construction. How date they!
By the way, you do recognize the irony in complaining about “losing” a 28-year-old reliever with 4.1 innings of MLB experience from the 40 man roster while at the same time complaining about “wasting” a spot on the 40 man roster for a 28-year-old reliever with better performance at Triple-A, right?
Oh right. You probably don’t.
What part of Jackson’s 2.42 ERA with 10.4 K/9 is worse than Baumann’s 3.39 ERA with 9.8 K/9? One of the people saying there was a chance of Jackson taking a late inning spot in the bullpen was Preller during an interview with Darren and Marty.
But hey, don’t let facts get in the way of your rant.
I enjoy that you look at career numbers sometimes and last year’s numbers sometimes, but have no consistency about which you use when.
Again, I have no problem if you want to argue that Jackson might have contributed to the bullpen in 2016. And I have no problem if you want to argue that neither Baumann nor Jackson belong on a 40-man roster. But you kind of need to plant your flag on one side or the other, not split the difference with whiny kvetching in the middle. Because your argument right now is that cutting ties with one journeyman reliever (who you might possibly have seen pitch once) who Preller put on the 40 man roster 3 months ago is a sign of impending doom, while the signing a different journeyman reliever to the 40 man roster is a sign of impending doom.
Separately, what else was Preller going to say about Jackson when he was asked about him by Smith? “Well, you know, Darren, we’ve got Jay on the roster right now, but I’ll be glad to jettison him as soon as some other guy you and 99% of your listeners have never heard of who we like a little better becomes available.”
Here’s a handy build-your-own quote about any player at the back end of any 40-man roster on any team that you can create to be said by any team official:
“You know, we like what [insert player’s name – attach a “y” to the end to make it a folksy-sounding nickname if it sounds good] brings to the table. He’s got [a live arm/great hands/a good approach at the plate] and we’ think he’ll be in the mix to contribute once we get to camp this spring. We really like what he showed us last year.”