Oh well.
Edwin Jackson will be pitching down the parkway for the Washington Nationals. It’s a huge day for a team on the rise; meanwhile, for the Orioles, they seem to be stuck in neutral.
From Fox Sports: The Washington Nationals, even after acquiring left-hander Gio Gonzalez and signing him to a five-year, $42 million extension, are not done adjusting their starting rotation.
The team has reached agreement with free-agent right-hander Edwin Jackson and is aggressively shopping left-hander John Lannan, major-league sources say.
The deal with Jackson, expected to be for one year in the $10 million range, is contingent on Jackson passing a physical.
Jackson, 28, is represented by Scott Boras, with whom the Nationals have worked well in the past. The Nats previously tried to acquire Jackson in trades, most notably at the 2010 non-waiver deadline.
Despite the Orioles offering him a multi-year deal, I guess Jackson wanted to pitch for a contender this year, a take a calculated risk and test out the market after the season.
From MASNSports.com, Roch’s Blog: Forget it. Jackson wasn’t going to sign with the Orioles unless they were willing to exceed executive vice president Dan Duquette’s three-year comfort zone . And I never was given an indication that they were prepared to do it, especially for the money that Jackson had sought. The Orioles weren’t going to give him $15 million per year.
Once it became apparent that agent Scott Boras would seek a one-year deal and send his client back into the free-agent fray next winter – a strategy that has worked for Boras in the past – the Orioles were officially out of the running.
As I kept saying, pitchers like Jackson and Roy Oswalt aren’t going to view Baltimore as the ideal destination when trying to pad their stats and become more attractive to other teams. The American League East isn’t a desirable spot, and it looks a lot worse from the basement.
Jackson reportedly turned down a few multi-year offers, so today’s decision is a gamble. He’s a .500 pitcher with a career 4.46 ERA and 1.476 WHIP whose stuff doesn’t match his output. But he could win big in D.C. and really strike it rich next winter.
Most figured – correctly – Jackson would not come to Baltimore because of Camden Yards, the losing ways of the organization, and being in American League East; however, for some, today is a bitter because he will be basically playing down the street — ok, a mere 40 miles away Route 295.
