Zach Jackson

A well-built 6-foot-3, 195-pound righthander with an extreme stab in his delivery, a long arm action and trouble repeating his delivery, Jackson battles his near bottom of the scale control in most every outing. Jackson has walked 5.5 walks batters per nine innings in his career and his control has shown little improvement during his three seasons with the Razorbacks. The Razorbacks have tried starting Jackson, but his pitch inefficiency always scraps the experiment-he made it out of the fifth inning in only one of his five Southeastern Conference starts this year. So why is Jackson rated so high? It's because he has one of the best breaking balls in the draft, an outstanding tight 12-to-6 downer curve which grades as at least a plus offering. Too often he misses his fastball by feet, not inches and even when he's locating it in the zone, hitters often seem to be able to time his 90-93 mph fastball when he's up in the zone. He also mixes in a below-average changeup. There are many nights where Jackson has more feel in his curveball than his fastball. As good as the arm is, it will take a significant optimist to believe that Jackson can tone down his delivery enough to start, but his combination of a plus curveball and a plus fastball (it sits 92-96 mph out of the bullpen) has played better as a reliever and would play with even below-average control.