AUSTIN JACKSON
This one seems to make sense, for a lot of reasons. Not only would it make the fans happy, but it’d be super cheap inking an old friend to a one-year deal.
Austin Jackson was limited to just 54 games on the south side of Chicago last year due to an ongoing knee injury that eventually required surgery. He put up modest numbers in that small sample, a .254/.318/.343 slash line in 181 ABs, averaging an RBI roughly every 10 ABs. In between his brief stop in Chicago and five seasons in Detroit, A-Jax played a season’s worth of games in Seattle from 2014-15 and played 29 games with the Cubs after they acquired him at the trade deadline. Overall, it’s good for a career .272/.332/.396 slash line.
Tigers fans know how great of a defender Jackson is… at least when healthy. Having only played in a third of the season last year will raise some red flags on whether he’s capable of playing everyday, or having to be in a platoon. Jackson made $5MM with the White Sox a year ago, a number that will surely dip for whoever signs him this go-round. Perhaps it reaches a point where it’s in the Tigers price range and the familiarity of a former player will be good for both the team and Jackson.
OTHER POTENTIAL NAMES: Michael Bourn, Coco Crisp, Drew Stubbs, Will Venable
**Feature image courtesy of Keith Allison/Flickr
**Stats and contract details courtesy of player’s Sports-Reference page
