Bleacher Bums Forum

It may be that Jackson's ceiling is that of a AAAA/fringe regular as some have estimated. 

Absolutely no one has said that.  No one.  Lack of blind optimism does not mean that I see his ceiling as that.

It may surprise some here, but I actually do like a lot about Jackson.  He has a wide base of skills.  He works the count and walks a lot.  He hits for pretty good power.  He plays good defense.  He's almost the exact type of player I would like the Cubs to fill their team with.  His ceiling is probably something like Bobby Abreu in his prime, who probably deserved some serious MVP consideration at some point during 1998-2004. 

But more likely, he's not going to overcome the strikeouts.  History tells us players just don't succeed when the strike out as much as he does, especially if they don't have elite power.  To piggyback on my earlier post...even if you assume a 28% strikeout rate, the only semi-modern era players who have succeeded enough to get 2,500 PAs in the majors are Branyan, Reynolds, Bo Jackson, Cust, Deer, and Dunn.  Six players--all with elite power--out of the 1,604 guys to collect 2,500 PAs since 1925.  That's a 0.4% success rate.  Maybe that's unfair since they've all played in the last 30-40 years...but even if you cut it to players after 1970, there are still 1,006 players who have had a lower K rate.

Jackson is going to have to get his strikeout rate down to around 25% to have a pretty good chance to be a long term regular.  If he drops it into the 20%-22% range, he's a borderline star.  But that's really, really unlikely.