The Nationals have signed right-handed pitcher Edwin Jackson to a one-year contract pending a physical, the team announced on Thursday. Terms of the deal were unavailable.
The 28-year-old is coming off a 2011 season where he had a 3.79 ERA for the Chicago White Sox and St. Louis Cardinals. His presence adds more depth to a Washington rotation already improved thanks to an earlier trade for left-handed pitcher Gio Gonzalez.
Jackson has pitched 183 1/3 innings or more each of the last four seasons and topped 200 innings in the last three. That is a boon to a team that will need to make up for Stephen Strasburg’s expected short season. The staff ace will be limited to 160 innings in his first full season back from Tommy John surgery.
Jackson is a power arm whose average fastball velocity ranked third among all qualified big-league starters last season. He was a 2009 American League All-Star with the Detroit Tigers, threw a no-hitter while with the Arizona Diamondbacks in 2010 and has pitched in the World Series with both the Tampa Bay Rays and the Cardinals.
That may be one issue. Washington is Jackson’s seventh team in a career that began when he was a 20-year-old with the Los Angeles Dodgers in 2003 and received a September call-up from Double-A. Much like Gonzalez, he is also prone to walking batters. Jackson dropped his total below 70 walks last season for the first time since he became a full-time starting pitcher in 2007. He ranked 43rd overall with 62 walks in 31 starts in 2011.
Jackson joins a starting rotation that now includes Strasburg, Gonzalez, Jordan Zimmermann, Jackson, John Lannan and Chien-Ming Wang. You can also add Ross Detwiler, who is out of minor-league options. That alone is seven candidates for five spots. That opens up the possibility of a trade. FoxSports.com’s Ken Rosenthal wrote a story on Thursday citing major-league sources saying the Nats were “aggressively” shopping Lannan in a trade. The team is still trying to address a vacancy in center field.
Lannan would be a cheap option for another club after losing his arbitration hearing with Washington on Thursday. The 27-year-old will make $5 million in 2012 instead of the $5.7 million he and his agent sought. But for now the team is expected to keep their parts together at least to start spring training. Wang, after all, made just 11 starts after finally returning from a two-year layoff thanks to right shoulder surgery. He appeared serviceable with a 4.04 ERA and re-signed with Washington in November on a one-year contract. But the Nats would like to see more before they start trading away possible rotation pieces.
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