Is Jeremiah Jackson good? Orioles' breakout star has concerning Statcast stats

Is Jeremiah Jackson good? Orioles' breakout star has concerning Statcast stats originally appeared on The Sporting News. Add The Sporting News as a Preferred Source by clicking here.

Jeremiah Jackson is on fire.

But is the Baltimore Orioles' breakout star the real deal? That's a lot less certain than the simple reality that he's hot.

Jackson has begun the 2026 season 18-for-53 (.340 batting average) with four home runs and 14 RBI.

In 48 games last year, he had a .775 OPS with the Orioles in his debut season.

Jackson is 26 years old and is a former second-round pick who didn't rise particularly quickly through the minor leagues.

At least right now, though, he's grabbing everyone's attention.

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Is Jeremiah Jackson good? What Statcast tells us

Jackson has quality Statcast numbers that suggest he can keep this up to some extent.

He also has a couple concerning metrics that make it pretty clear he's playing at least a bit over his head at the moment.

Jackson's barrel percentage, bat speed, squared-up percentage and launch angle sweet spot are all above average.

That's great, right? Yeah, for sure.

But he doesn't hit the ball very hard -- 87.8 MPH exit velocity average is in the 30th-percentile in the league, below average.

And then Jackson swings at everything. His chase percentage is in the 2nd-percentile, one of the worst in baseball. Jackson offers at 45.7% of the pitches that come his way out of the zone.

His hard-hit percentage is in the 16th-percentile, too (31.0%).