April 26, 2013; Detroit, MI, USA; Detroit Tigers center fielder Austin Jackson (14) scores a run against the Atlanta Braves at Comerica Park. Mandatory Credit: Rick Osentoski-USA TODAY Sports

Austin Jackson will still need to remain on the disabled list for about nine more days before he’s eligible to return to action, but the good news out of Detroit is that he’s unlikely to need extra time to recover from his hamstring injury. James Schmehl of MLive has a quote from Jim Leyland to this end:

Jackson has been sidelined since May 11 with a strained left hamstring, but he’s “feeling much better,” according to Leyland.

“He’s doing good,” he said. “He should be on time.”

I think many a Detroit Tigers fan would love to see Don Kelly get the heave-ho when Jackson returns, but it’s much more likely that Avisail Garcia — the Tigers’ most MLB ready outfield prospect — will be sent back to the minor leagues. Garcia has an .875 OPS (with a home run) in eight plate appearances since his recall this season, but the organization is going to want him to get more playing time than he’s going to be able to get with the big club.

There’s a (very compelling) argument to be made that he should be starting pretty much everyday in center (instead of platooning with Kelly) right now, but even that argument goes out the window with the eventual return of Jackson. Garcia is (and will be) a better hitter than The Donald, but Kelly is better suited to be the MLB backup right now.

If nothing else, Garcia will join the roster in September when the minor league season ends, and could displace Kelly on a potential playoff roster. Of course, it’s also possible that Garcia is up before then should another injury arise. He’d be first in line to be an everyday outfielder should, say, Torii Hunter hit the disable list.

April 5, 2013; Detroit, MI, USA; Detroit Tigers center fielder Austin Jackson (14) at bat against the New York Yankees at Comerica Park. Mandatory Credit: Rick Osentoski-USA TODAY Sports

Even though Austin Jackson struck out four times last night in the 14-inning marathon of a game, he’s still sporting a better-than-league-average 12% strikeout rate. That’s half of his career rate (24%). We’re only talking about 14 games and 74 plate appearances – which isn’t the largest of sample sizes – but we can believe that some of the strikeout reduction is “real”. Just how much of it is real and how much is random variation at work, though, is the question.

I think pretty much every Tigers fan knows the background on Jackson. He burst onto the scene in 2010 with a nice rookie year that saw him hit .293/.345/.400. He struck out a lot – 25% of his plate appearances – but his high BABIP (.396) allowed him to hide this deficiency. The balls didn’t fall for hits quite so often (.340 BABIP) in his 2011 sophomore campaign (while the strikeouts rose to 27%) and his OBP dipped below .320. Jackson changed his approach at the plate with the help of hitting coach Lloyd McClendon in the offseason prior to 2012 and he went on to have his best season yet. The strikeouts dropped five percentage points down to 22%, he drew more walks, the BABIP went back up, and his on-base percentage jumped to .377. He really was everything a leadoff hitter should be.

And this season the trend has continued. As mentioned in the opening, he Jackson has only been punched out in 12% of his plate appearances. If he can keep that rate below 17% for the year, he’ll become only the fourth player since 1955 to cut down the strikeout rate by 5% or more in two consecutive years.

But will he do that? We can’t know for sure, but we can estimate his new strikeout prevention ability based on the work of others. Russell Carleton (now of Baseball Prospectus) has done some oft-cited work in the past about sample size thresholds and when certain statistics become reliable. FanGraphs has compiled a quick-and-easy page with some of the rules of thumb.

Strikeout rate is one of the stats that becomes reliable relatively quickly. At 150 plate appearances we’ve reached the “break even point” whereby the best statistical estimate of a player’s true talent level would include 50% observed results and 50% of the league average result. Another (probably easier) way to think about it is, for strikeout rate, we always want to add 150 plate appearances of average into the player’s stat line.

There might be three ways to do this for Austin Jackson. If we regressed his 2013 line of 12% (in 74 Pas) with 150 plate appearances of MLB average K-rate (right around 19%), we’d figure his “true” rate to be 17%.

But Austin has never been an MLB average striker outer. Even last year, after reducing his rate by a significant 5%, he was punched out at a higher-than-average rate. One could figure that regressing toward his career average of 24% would be more prudent considering he has over 2,000 plate appearances to his name. If we do that, we would figure his new true strikeout rate to be 20%.

But perhaps it’s unfair to regress all the way to his career rate when he already showed some reduction below that line a season ago. A season of strikeout data is a good indicator of true ability (observed and regressed numbers differ by less than one percentage point), so it could be right to use last season as the regression baseline. It doesn’t end up being all that different from using his career line, but it would put him down to 19% — basically MLB average.

So, while 12% looks great so far, it’s probably unrealistic to see him finishing the year at that level of strikeout avoidance. That being said, it’s likely that he is truly continuing in his ability to cut down the K’s. It would be reasonable, at this point, for us to project him to finish the year with a strikeout rate in the 17%-20% range, with 19%-20% being the more likely portion of the rage in my opinion. This likely wouldn’t qualify him for the 5% reduction in back-to-back years, but it would still represent a significant improvement and further encouragement for his development as a potential star-caliber player.

With the bases loaded Austin Jackson was in an 0-2 hole. He had already fouled off three pitches while facing 0-2 and it felt inevitable that the inning would end with a “Tigers threaten but do not score.”

But Jackson took ball one. Ok. Bobby LaFromboise had essentially thrown five straight strikes, so a waste pitch out of the strike zone was bound to happen. Still it was 1-2.

Jackson took ball two. Now hope, which had already dissipated, slowly returns. Jackson is no longer in a hole. The count is even. Jackson has new life. The pressure is now on LaFromboise, who has nowhere else to put Jackson with the bases loaded.

Jackson took ball three. Well now we’re invested as fans. What was a meaningless at bat bound for a tragic ending is now the most important at bat of the entire game. It will all come down to one pitch (a slight exaggeration but when you’re in the moment everything feels this important).

Ball four.

Jackson takes his base and an uncomfortable two-run lead becomes a slightly more comfortable three-run lead with the bullpen ready to take over the game.

Considering how well the Tigers pitchers performed, Jackson’s at bat wasn’t a turning point in the game nor was it the moment Detroit clinched this one.

But it’s a great example of how much better Jackson has become as a hitter. He opened the game facing an 0-2 count and that at bat ended in a triple and he eventually scored.

Jackson has come a long way from the player who struck out 170 times in his rookie season only to follow that up with 181 strikeouts in his sophomore year. And if he continues to improve on this transformation into a more patient hitter, Jackson could very well be the consensus No. 1 hitter in the league.

Not a bad player to have setting the table when Miguel Cabrera, Prince Fielder and Victor Martinez are the ones coming to dinner on a nightly basis.

Bullets

• The bullpen may be a concern of ours for a while, but it’s clear that when it comes starting games, the Tigers have no problems. It’ll be interesting to see if Detroit can continue it’s run of scoring first (and scoring in the first inning) all year.
• Prince Fielder needs to take the tape of this game and just burn it. There’s nothing you can learn from watching yourself strike out four times in a game. Sometimes it’s best to just forget about the day and move on.
• I like Al Alburqurque. I’ve been in love with that slider ever since I first saw it. And I know he walks guys way more than a closer should. But why not try him as a closer?
• What more can be said about Miguel Cabrera? At this point he needs to start not hitting for us to write more about him. He’s become as predictable (in a great way) as the sun rising and setting. Never change Miggy.
• If Alex Avila continues to struggle at the plate the way he has been (.195/.233/.341 with 12 Ks in 10 games before tonight) the Tigers will essentially have 0 catchers for the entire season. Fortunately his defense hasn’t been this bad.