Can Alex Jackson Do Something That's Never Been Done?

[Matthew Trueblood]

Image courtesy of © James A. Pittman-Imagn Images

In the last 50 years, only one catcher has had at least 400 big-league plate appearances in their 20s with a materially worse OPS+ than Alex Jackson's career mark of 46. Twins fans needn't strain themselves to imagine such a player, though, for that one special case was Drew Butera (36 OPS+). That's the caliber of player the Twins acquired from the Orioles earlier this winter—one of the worst hitters in baseball history.

That's a bit reductive, though. It ignores some important facts about Jackson, and it gives a bit too much credit to the past. Firstly, while Jackson has undeniably been a bust since being taken sixth overall in the 2014 MLB Draft, it hasn't been because he didn't develop as a defender, and it hasn't been because he lacked athleticism. He's an above-average framer and thrower, and he's shown plus power potential even en route to some of the ugliest stat lines in recent memory. He even runs well, especially for a catcher. Jackson is an elite rotational, explosive athlete; he just swings and misses too damn much to convert that capacity into production.

Secondly, but more importantly, we live in the fastest-changing and least hidebound baseball environment the world has ever known. It's an age of technological evaluation and development, and in it, teams are not slaves to players' track records. What happens on the field still makes up the lion's share of a club's assessment of a player, to be sure, but 'what happens on the field' no longer needs to be messily summarized by an examination of the results. Teams can evaluate players' tools, skills, and approaches in ways that allow them to imagine a future even for a player with a truly moribund past.

In Jackson, the Twins see at least some chance of a turnaround, despite his .153/.239/.288 career batting line and the fact that he'll turn 30 on Christmas. They have three key reasons for that hope:

1. Jackson's bat speed increased from 74.4 miles per hour in 2024 to 76.1 this season.
2. He got much more selective in 2025, swinging less at pitches outside the strike zone and improving his balance between patience and aggressiveness.
3. He has an upper-tier throwing arm behind the plate and a Statcast Sprint Speed of 27.5 feet per second.

Let's talk about the implications of each of those. The increase in bat speed took Jackson from plus to elite in swing speed, making him a more dangerous power hitter in 2025 than he'd ever been in the majors before. You can measure that by results (13 extra-base hits in 100 big-league plate appearances), but it's just as evident in markers of process. Jackson pulled the ball more often, especially in the air. He posted a 107-mph 90th-percentile exit velocity, up a full 5 miles per hour from 2024. His slugging average on contact shot up, from .543 to .721. Guys who swing faster than 76 mph on average don't all succeed, but they're practically all dangerous, and they tend to get lots of chances to figure things out—because swinging that fast gives one access to elite power.

Of course, sheer bat speed matters little if one never comes into contact with the ball, and Jackson whiffs as much as just about any hitter in baseball. That's been his greatest limiting factor as a professional hitter, and it's not getting better, except in very limited ways. For instance, he whiffed on sliders much less often in 2025 (32% of swings, down from 43.1% and 46.2% in the previous two years), but whiffed more per swing, overall—nearly 40% of the time. That's why the changes he made to his approach this season were crucial.

Taking Triple-A and big-league plate appearances together, Jackson swung at 39.6% of pitches outside the strike zone in 2023, 38.3% of them in 2024, and just 34.5% in 2025. He increased his SEAGER (a metric designed by Robert Orr of Baseball Prospectus to evaluate a hitter's selective aggressiveness, by assigning decision value to each swing/take decision based on pitch location and subtracting their share of bad takes among all pitches taken from their share of good decisions consisting of good takes) from 11.0 in 2023 to 17.0 in 2024 and 17.4 in 2025; an average SEAGER is roughly 12.5. For a player with extreme swing-and-miss issues, that ability to avoid an undue number of deep counts without getting oneself out by chasing everything is vital. In the past, he didn't do that well enough. In 2025, he was better at it.

Now, though, Jackson is set to enter his 30s. Even good catchers usually aren't good in their 30s. Bad ones never, ever turn into good ones—not really. The guys who survive being execrable hitters in their 20s (Luke Maile, Jeff Mathis, Butera) are defensive specialists. You can admire the fact that Jackson swatted 13 extra-base hits in 100 big-league plate appearances in 2025, but that's in the past, now. The Twins' question, when weighing acquiring him, needed to be whether he could do something similar in 2026.

To that end, it's important to know that Jackson averages 86.1 miles per hour on his throws to second base, the 12th-best figure among 84 catchers who qualified for Baseball Savant's leaderboard in 2025. It's important to know that he runs more like a left fielder than like a catcher. Jackson made adjustments to get more out of his swing last season, both by increasing its intensity and by more judiciously managing the zone. There's hope that he can make the most of that, because he also remains a plus athlete, capable of moving exceptionally well even among the cohort of big-league players.

There is, actually, one relevant precedent for what Jackson and the Twins hope the catcher will be over the next few years: Christian Bethancourt. After being a highly touted young backstop in the first half of last decade, Bethancourt got a good number of opportunities in the first half of his 20s, from 2013-17. He was a disaster, batting .222/.252/.316. He crashed out of the majors and ended up playing the 2019 season in Korea. He didn't appear in a big-league game from 2018-21. However, Bethancourt also has an exceptional arm—so much so that he clawed his way back into the game at age 30 as a possible two-way player. He didn't end up making much of a run as a pitcher, but his athleticism and power shone through when he got back to the majors. From 2022-24, he batted .233/.264/.390 in the majors. That's still lousy, but it's a much bigger step forward than most bad-hitting catchers take when they reach that phase of their careers. Jackson was better than that in 2025. Could he carry that over for another few years?

All the historical evidence says 'no'. In 2025 (and beyond), though, the historical evidence isn't the most salient information at hand. The Twins are looking for precedents and opportunities by studying bat speed, physical capacity, and approach to the game, rather than by studying statistics accumulated in past games. Jackson doesn't have star-level upside. On his own fundamentals, though, he does have a chance to be a viable big-league backstop—even if there's hardly anyone in baseball history on whose numbers to model that future for him.

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[CRF]

All he pretty much has to do...is be better than Gasper. 

[RpR]

As long as he does not throw the ball to the Center Fielder , as Jeffers did too often, he will fit just fine.

[ziggy]

If he can block the pitches in the dirt, stop the other teams  from stealing 2nd whenever they wish and perhaps pick off a runner at first once in a while a close to Mendoza line batting average would be palatable.

[mikelink45]

Is this about hope or desperation?  I can only wait and see - 

Quote

sheer bat speed matters little if one never comes into contact with the ball, and Jackson whiffs as much as just about any hitter in baseball.

I think the quote covers it.  Wait until spring - right now every player we bring in could be better, could surprise - but they also could fail, could stink.  

[bunsen82]

Jackson showed in SSS he was more selective and did more damage on the hits he had. If he can continue or dare I say improve more which he found something that worked and has improved his selectiveness each of the last 3 years, I am certain he will provide more pop than we got from Vasquez. He has a good arm so I am pretty satisfied with him as the backup,

[Fatbat]

A MLB catcher was worse at the plate than C. Vasquez? WOW. 

[ziggy]

43 minutes ago, Fatbat said:

A MLB catcher was worse at the plate than C. Vasquez? WOW. 

only if you look at statistics...........

[bean5302]

4 hours ago, CRF said:

All he pretty much has to do...is be better than Gasper. 

Gasper last year owned a wRC+ 42
Jackson's career is wRC+ 48, but at least he's supposedly solid defensively.
Drew Butera is wRC+ 45

We're basically getting Drew Butera. I think there is a long shot Jackson could take a big step forward. He can hit fastballs at least. The scariest part is the ice blue center zone on meatballs. If he got every pitch middle/middle last year, his xwOBA would have been a miserable .214. Like seriously... how can a guy have an xwOBA of .214 on meatballs?

Hopefully, that's just a SSSS issue and he really has figured a little something out. I guess? Whatever. It's fine. Everything is fine.

[Dman]

Man I had wanted the Twins to draft Jackson that year and they passed on him for Gordon I believe. I felt Nola didn't have the needed velocity to be good at the MLB level (lol).  Turner was the player I had my super draft crush on but was told by most of this board that with no power and being injury prone he shouldn't go top 5.  I guess the industry felt the same as he was picked outside the top 10 (#13).

It just goes to show we don't really know how guys are going to develop at the professional level.  Given the numbers Jackson has put up I'm not a big believer.  Still it is nice to have a good defensive backstop to control the running game, steal strikes and keep balls from getting away.   Hopefully the bat gets better and the Twins find a diamond in the rough catcher they can keep on the cheap for the next three years.

[ashbury]

Regardless of its actual content, this article includes possibly the best example of Betteridge's law of headlines I have ever seen.

Do something that's never been done?  I'm gonna stick my neck out and answer: NO!  😁

[Doctor Wu]

6 hours ago, bean5302 said:

We're basically getting Drew Butera. I think there is a long shot Jackson could take a big step forward.

Butera was never going to challenge the likes of Arreaz for a batting title, but he was a decent backup catcher. I'll settle for something similar. But as this article noted, and bean said, there is certainly a chance that Jackson can up that batting average. After reading this article, I'm full of optimism!

[tarheeltwinsfan]

Maybe Jackson can bunt and use that elite catchers' speed to get bunt base hits. Hahaha. Why didn't the Twins keep catcher Daniel Susac? He's 24 and can hit.

[MinnInPa]

so this guy is worse than Rortvet ? a catcher ..or any other player on a Roster is worthless if he cant hit .200

[bean5302]

3 hours ago, Doctor Wu said:

Butera was never going to challenge the likes of Arreaz for a batting title, but he was a decent backup catcher. I'll settle for something similar. But as this article noted, and bean said, there is certainly a chance that Jackson can up that batting average. After reading this article, I'm full of optimism!

I could argue Mickey Gasper is the best catcher of all time by this logic.

Butera has a -3.8 CAREER WAR. Take a look at 2011 please....

Your memories of Butera are in massive conflict with the reality. wRC+ 19 as a primary catcher for Minnesota because of Joe Mauer's "bi-lateral leg weakness" huge reason the Twins collapsed.

[Otaknam]

I do not understand why the Twins, with a dearth of system catchers who are big league ready, drafted Daniel Susac in the rule five draft, and then immediately traded him for a 17 year old catcher who is years away from the big leagues. Susac has a lot of potential offensive skills, as his track record demonstrates. He could have pushed Jackson for backup catcher, especially since Jackson can’t hit. Why does this make sense? They could have chosen a rule 5 pitcher who had a chance to make the bullpen. Another Falvey head scratcher! 

[DJL44]

2 hours ago, tarheeltwinsfan said:

Why didn't the Twins keep catcher Daniel Susac? He's 24 and can hit.

What makes you think Buster Posey knows more about catching than Derek Falvey (besides every shred of available evidence)?

[nicksaviking]

Really don't like that the Twins approach seems to heavily rely on fixing aging players from other clubs who've never made it in the league. That's seriously 35% of the offensive players on the 40-man roster. And that's AFTER McCusker asked for his release.

[arby58]

13 hours ago, Fatbat said:

A MLB catcher was worse at the plate than C. Vasquez? WOW. 

Career, yes, but not last year. Granted, it was only 100 plate appearances, but Jackson had an OPS+ of 111, an OPS of .763. He also had 5 HRs and scored 17 runs - that's pretty efficient production.

Vasquez, in contrast, had an OPS+ of 52, OPS of .545. He also had more than double the plate appearances (214) yet scored fewer runs (14) and hit fewer HRs (3). Last year, really no comparison.

[arby58]

32 minutes ago, nicksaviking said:

Really don't like that the Twins approach seems to heavily rely on fixing aging players from other clubs who've never made it in the league. That's seriously 35% of the offensive players on the 40-man roster. And that's AFTER McCusker asked for his release.

I don't understand why people aren't giving Jackson credit for a pretty good 2025. The Twins don't need to 'fix' him, they just need him to continue to perform at his 2025 level.

[LambchoP]

I would rather they kept Susac from the A's. Young guy who can hit. Would probably have been a better backup than Jackson, and if he really did well, could have taken over the starters role from Jeffers after this year... We'll see how he does this year.

[bunsen82]

13 hours ago, Fatbat said:

A MLB catcher was worse at the plate than C. Vasquez? WOW. 

he had a .220/.290/.473 slash line last year and a .6 WAR in 90 at bats.  Certainly better than what we got from Vasquez.  

[bunsen82]

33 minutes ago, LambchoP said:

I would rather they kept Susac from the A's. Young guy who can hit. Would probably have been a better backup than Jackson, and if he really did well, could have taken over the starters role from Jeffers after this year... We'll see how he does this year.

Susac played in a bandbox in AAA.  In either case,  I would have kept Susac and potentially traded Jeffers and ran with Susac/Jackson and Pereda.  They are all a tad below average but between the 3 you have some depth and 1 of the 3 could flash and show to be a long term option.   To me Susac has more value than a lottery ticket.   Giants agreed as well.   We will see, he is likely nothing but it would have been an interesting strategy.  

[TJSweens]

15 hours ago, Fatbat said:

A MLB catcher was worse at the plate than C. Vasquez? WOW. 

Not last year. Vazquez - .545 OPS. Jackson - .763.

[Teflon]

"Secondly, but more importantly, we live in the fastest-changing and least hidebound baseball environment"

I would contend that a baseball is still bound by hide.

[twinstalker]

I'm aghast that Jackson hasn't considered improving before this.  Think of the millions he was forgetting about.

[KirbyDome89]

3 hours ago, arby58 said:

Career, yes, but not last year. Granted, it was only 100 plate appearances, but Jackson had an OPS+ of 111, an OPS of .763. He also had 5 HRs and scored 17 runs - that's pretty efficient production.

Vasquez, in contrast, had an OPS+ of 52, OPS of .545. He also had more than double the plate appearances (214) yet scored fewer runs (14) and hit fewer HRs (3). Last year, really no comparison.

Nearly all of Jackson's "production," came during 5-6 game stretch, so yeah, in a 100 PA sample size that's going to skew things. If you fed him another 100+ PAs that OPS would continue to tumble. 

[farmerguychris]

I still think I'd be more excited about Susac than I am Jackson.  

[bean5302]

Alex Jackson got lucky in a SSS last year. It's not like he earned the boost in production.
5.0% BB and 37.0% K rate tells you almost everything you need to know about a hitter.

[Fred]

21 hours ago, bean5302 said:

Gasper last year owned a wRC+ 42
Jackson's career is wRC+ 48, but at least he's supposedly solid defensively.
Drew Butera is wRC+ 45

We're basically getting Drew Butera. I think there is a long shot Jackson could take a big step forward. He can hit fastballs at least. The scariest part is the ice blue center zone on meatballs. If he got every pitch middle/middle last year, his xwOBA would have been a miserable .214. Like seriously... how can a guy have an xwOBA of .214 on meatballs?

Hopefully, that's just a SSSS issue and he really has figured a little something out. I guess? Whatever. It's fine. Everything is fine.

"Everything is fine". Whistling past the graveyard?