Sep 9, 2012; Washington, DC, USA; Washington Nationals starting pitcher Edwin Jackson (33) throws in the first inning against the Miami Marlins at Nationals Park. Mandatory Credit: Brad Mills-USA TODAY Sports

The deal, according to reports, is to be a four-year pact that is valued at $52 million and is pending a physical. The deal does not include no-trade protection, according to Jon Heyman.

Jackson has been extremely well-traveled over the course of his career, so being able to land a multi-year deal was something that probably appealed to him more than it would most players. Jackson has played for seven different major league teams in his ten seasons and that doesn’t even include the Blue Jays, with whom he was a member for part of one day in July of 2011.

Jackson was 10-11 for the Nationals last season with an ERA of 4.03. He also struck out eight batters per nine innings. Over the past five years, the 29-year-old has averaged 199 innings per season and pitched to a 4.06 ERA while working for six different clubs.

The Cubs are assembling a starting staff that will have the capability of competing in the National League. Whether they can score enough runs is another story, but the additions of Carlos Villanueva, Scott Baker, Jackson, and Scott Feldman give the Cubs an establised starter in every slot of their rotation.

The Cubs don’t figure to compete in 2013, but Jackson is still young enough to remain an effective starter through the end of his new deal and, hopefully, be a lynchpin of the next Cubs playoffs team.

Lannan is one of many starters on Minnesota’s radar. Image: Anthony Gruppuso-USA TODAY Sports

So far this Winter the Twins have traded away center fielder Denard Span and got a minor league arm in return. Word is that they are listening on first baseman Justin Morneau and on left fielder Josh Willingham, though they don’t expect to deal either player. Ben Revere, who is slated to take over for Span in center, is drawing interest on the trade market and Twins GM Terry Ryan may be willing to part with him in a deal to bring back pitching.

Regardless of whether or not they can trade for a starter, the Twins will have to make at least a couple of free agent signings as well. This is an organization that has preached pitching to contact and has shied away from strikeout pitchers with big arms. It’s been a philosophy that has failed them in recent seasons and one they’ve noted must change.

Much like power at the plate is expensive, power arms don’t come cheap either and the Twins don’t have a ton of money to play with.

According to Jon Heyman, the Twins have checked in on just about every second and third tier starter on the open market.

Part of #twins shop list: saunders, blanton, liriano, pelf, ejax, marcum, lannan, mccarthy, jurrjens, pavano. need 2/3 SPs

— Jon Heyman (@JonHeymanCBS) December 5, 2012

Unfortunately, looking at that list, only a couple, Edwin Jackson and Francisco Liriano, could realistically be considered strikeout guys, and they’ve already been there, done that with Liriano.

The Twins are a long ways from contending again, but they can speed up the timeline by adding a few quality arms. They don’t necessarily need a power rotation to match what Detroit can throw out there, but building a staff of right handers with mid-80s fastballs isn’t going to cut it either. Guys like Carl Pavano and, to a lesser extent, Shaun Marcum are the opposite of the kind of pitchers they should be considering.

Ryan understands that he has multiple holes to fill and limited resources with which to work, but prioritizing someone like Jackson would give Minnesota a reliable, power arm at the top of their rotation. Moving from there to John Lannan and Joe Saunders and adding one of those two and there could still be enough left over to take a flier on someone like Jair Jurrjens.

It would be a patchwork staff to be sure, but one that, along with holdover Scott Diamond, would instantly bring the Twins back to respectability.

Before we look at the rest of the pitching staff and the team, we’ll need to know what’s being lost when Strasburg throws a towel around his arm for the final time this season and takes his permanent spot on the bench.  Forget about wins – we don’t talk about wins – and focus on the peripheral numbers for a minute.

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Edwin Jackson is as about as underrated as a pitcher can be. But has a low-BABIP inflated his 2012 numbers to unrealistic heights?

.  The flame-throwing right-hander who can never find a home has always fascinated me.  Not surprisingly, my obsession with Jackson may have a good deal to do with my obsession with BABIP.

Last season, Jackson had the 2^nd highest BABIP (.330), among qualified starters.  This number, when my understanding of BABIP was still in its infancy, led me to believe that Jackson was among baseball’s unluckiest starters and was due for serious regression in 2012.  My assumption that Jackson’s BABIP would regress, and as a result of that regression his ERA would fall may have been incorrect.

Jackson has been a high BABIP pitcher over his time in the majors.  Prior to 2012, in Jackson’s five full seasons as a MLB starter his BABIP was .305, ten points higher than the league average.  His ERA- (101), over that time, was slightly higher than his FIP- (99), which shows that he may have been better than the ERA numbers he posted would indicate.

Jackson has always been a high BABIP starter in my mind; which is why I was utterly shocked today to look at the 2012 BABIP numbers and see that Jackson has the fourth-lowest BABIP (.228) in baseball.

The regression in Jackson’ BABIP and subsequent reduction in his ERA, that I (slightly ignorantly) assumed would occur for Jackson in 2012, seems to be occurring right now.  His low BABIP has resulted in an ERA of 2.91; that number is significantly better than his ERA (4.35) over his five seasons prior to 2012.

I understand now that BABIP is not all about lucky vs. unlucky; there is more that goes into that statistic than just the uncertainty of where a ball that’s put in play will land.  At this point, it is not enough for me to just assume that Jackson’s luck has evened out, and he’s getting the benefit of luck’s charm, this season.

His current xFIP (4.05) and SIERA (3.93) are better than his xFIP (4.27) and SIERA (4.40) over the course of the last five seasons; which leads me to conclude that Jackson has been better this season than earlier in his career.  However, while Jackson’s pitching has improved, his xFIP and SIERA predict some serious regression for his 2012 ERA going forward.

Jackson has pitched for a ton of franchises; thus, he has pitched in front of many different defenses.  Defense is a large factor in terms of suppressing BABIP, as evidenced by the ridiculous low staff BABIP of the 2011 Tampa Bay Rays.  The Nationals’ current staff BABIP (.265) is the lowest in baseball.  Normally, Jackson’s low BABIP would be stashed under the assumption that Washington had great team defense; thus, lowering his BABIP.  That, again, is too fast of an assumption for my liking.

There just happens to be an inverse relationship between strikeout rate and BABIP.  This relationship makes abstract sense, because pitchers with nastier stuff should induce weaker contact.  The Nationals’ staff currently has the 2^nd highest K-rate in baseball (8.39 per 9), but UZR ranks them as baseball’s 14^th best defense; which tells me that their low team BABIP has more to do with their pitching staff than it has to do with their defense.  Interestingly, Jackson’s strikeout rate (6.6) is well below the team rate, and clearly not the reason for his low BABIP.

Interestingly, batted ball statistics do not explain Jackson’s BABIP.  His line-drive rate has dipped by almost 7% since last season; which again would normally be a good reason for a BABIP reduction like we have seen for Edwin.  However, Jackson posted a similar LD-rate in 2010, and his BABIP was higher than league average by a fair amount (.313).  In 2012, Edwin also has a weirdly low IFFB% (3.9%), normally a high IFFB% leads to a lower BABIP, the exact opposite of what has occurred for Jackson.  With no other real changes to his numbers, sadly the only thing I can truly file this BABIP reduction under is the largest cop-out in baseball, luck.

I hate using the L-word, but in the case of Jackson’s 2012 BABIP it’s really the only word that makes sense.  I would like to point out though, whether Edwin has been lucky or not, if this low BABIP trend continues over the course of the season, which it very likely could, he could be receiving a rather large payday on the free agent market, due to a lucky-supported ERA.

All statistics come courtesy of Fangraphs

You can follow Glenn on twitter @Baseballs_Econ or check out his latest at Beyond the Box Score

While it’s way too early to evaluate those major signings, we’re starting to get a better idea of how some of the short-term deals of the 2011 off-season are panning out. It’s still early, of course, but it’s always exciting to pick arbitrary points in the middle of the season and question past decisions, especially now that we’re armed with the benefit of future results to bolster the inner critic in us. For the sake of fairness, I will resist the temptation to bring up any deals that run longer than one year. I know that eliminates a lot of exciting players that are just begging to be analyzed, but I’m going to give them a pass until their contract’s end approaches.

We already know that one-year deals are generally considered to be a pretty sound move financially. It means little risk for the team handing out the money, and it works well for the player too, as a good season puts them right back on the free agent market with new leverage. Even low risk transactions have varying degrees of success, however, so it’s time to take a look and see how these baby contracts are playing out so far in 2012.

Mandatory Credit: Steve Mitchell-US PRESSWIRE

Edwin Jackson (Nationals, $11 million)

Jackson was a Type B free agent, so he didn’t cost the Nats anything in the draft that recently took place. He’s hardly a star (career FIP of 4.27), but at 28 years of age, Washington got a solid pitcher at the absolute peak of his abilities with virtually zero risk included. Jackson is relatively durable and consistent, and even if he is over-performing at the moment, his 1.4 WAR total in 2012 indicates he’s well on his way to making this a big win. Jackson’s solid peripherals (7.3 K/9, 2.4 BB/9, 1.02 WHIP) are all well ahead of his career averages, but it’s not at all impossible he’s ready to take another step in his career. He’s always had the ability, and this being the prime of his career, it would make sense for him to show some improvement. If he regresses to his old self, however, it’s still hard to see this deal not working out for the Nationals, and they’ll get the first crack at signing him to a long-term deal if his gains are sustainable.

Carlos Pena (Rays, $7.25 million)

Coming off a previous one-year deal with the Cubs, Pena elected to return to Tampa Bay on yet another one-year deal. While he was solid enough for the Cubs (.819 OPS, 2.3 WAR), his return to the AL has not gone well so far. Apart from hitting .282 in 2007, Pena has never finished a season in which he compiled at least 500 plate appearances with an average higher than .248; his contact hitting skills are non-existent. Despite his penchant for working walks and hitting for power (14.0% BB rate, .244 ISO for his career), Pena offers limited upside at the plate since he’s always being weighed down by an abysmal batting average. His 2012 BABIP is a little lower than normal, but not by enough to justify the fact he’s hitting .198. One-year deals carry very little risk, obviously, but Pena isn’t on pace to earn this contract as of now.

Luke Scott (Rays, $6 million)

Scott had just concluded a season in which he posted a .220/.301/.402 triple-slash line with Baltimore, and the early results of 2012 with his new team are almost identical. He’s just two years removed from slugging .535, however, so you can see what the Rays might have thought they were getting with this deal. Instead, they paid $6 million for someone who’s played at replacement level so far. The major problem seems to be that Scott is no longer hitting lefties at all (.510 OPS in 2012); he was passable against them earlier in his career. He could still be a useful platoon bat, but this was probably an overpay for a guy who’s only useful in limited doses.

Paul Maholm (Cubs, $4.75 million)

Possessing typical boring lefty stuff, Maholm is hardly worth mentioning; this was about the most yawn-inducing contract of the entire off-season, in fact. Admittedly, he did post 2.1 WAR a season ago with the Pirates, and the Cubs were looking to give their rotation some depth, so it’s hard to find fault here. It’s just that Maholm isn’t a very good pitcher and no one really cares about him. Having been worth -0.3 WAR so far this season, he may wind up achieving the nearly impossible: making a team regret a one-year deal.

Erik Bedard (Pirates, $4.25 million)

The Pirates are getting about exactly what they hoped for in Bedard thus far; his numbers are all in line with his career averages, and he’s staying healthy. He’s been a little wild, perhaps, but the K’s are starting to pile up and in the incredibly rare event he makes all his scheduled starts this season, this will wind up being a pretty nice move by Pittsburgh. It’s still a puzzling decision, however; why sign random injury-risk veterans to short-term deals when your team has too many holes at present to even bother trying to fill with the patchwork approach?

Can’t get enough of Spencer? Check out his work at StanGraphs and follow him on Twitter at @shendricks221.

March 21, 2012; Melbourne, FL, USA; Washington Nationals starting pitcher John Lannan (31) during the spring training game against the Atlanta Braves at Space Coast Stadium. Atlanta won 3-2 in 10 innings. Mandatory Credit: Brad Barr-US PRESSWIRE

The problem for the Nats is that Lannan has a 5.38 FIP in 50 innnings…at AAA. That’s horrible. He is striking out just 4.7 batters per nine innings with a 3.4 BB/9 and is giving up homers at a high pace, in AAA no less.

Terrible minor league performance aside, John Lannan is a decent back-of-the-rotation starter who is about a 1-1.3 WAR pitcher (his total last season was 1.3 WAR). He has poor control and doesn’t get many punchouts, but Lannan makes up for it by inducing a high amount of grounders and can eat up innings without there being injury concerns.

Lannan is owed $5 million this season, which is what a 1.1 WAR player makes. He’s worth that much, but the Nats might have to eat up some of his salary if they want something of significance in return. They should be able to get a decent reliever in return who can stabilize a bullpen that has been marred by inconsistency among good relievers, and injuries have also played their part in the Nats disappointing ‘pen.

Drew Storen and Brad Lidge are still out with injuries, and Henry Rodriguez- their most talented, healthy reliever- has been poor this season. The Nats should be able to get a decent SU from a Lannan trade, but the poor performance 50 AAA innings has probably scared some potential suitors already.

Follow Joe Soriano on Twitter here. Check out District on Deck for everything on the Washington Nationals.