Giants sign Austin Jackson, Indians lose Austin Jackson.

The San Francisco Giants still needed a centerfielder after the Andrew McCutchen trade and the team at least partially did so with the signing of veteran Austin Jackson to a two-year contract worth six million dollars.
The contract can rise to as high as 8.5 million with various performances bonuses and contract escalators and with or without the bonus clauses, is reasonable enough to add a veteran outfielder and still keep the Giants under the luxury tax hit.

The 31-year-old Jackson hit well last season for the Indians (.318/7/35) but struggled to stay healthy as he has had in the past and played in just 85 games.
I was hoping the Indians would be able to re-sign him, but part of what (up until now at least) has been the lost Indians offseason has been players that played well being allowed to leave Cleveland even when it seemed as the cost of keeping them (with the exception of Carlos Santana) would not be oppressive.
Jackson would have been a helpful role player for the Indians, but I'm still furious about the decision to keep the brittle Michael Brantley over the sturdy Jay Bruce over a million dollar difference (OK, the contract that the Mets gave Bruce was over three years, while the Tribe simply accepted an option on Brantley).
Jackson wouldn't have cured what is a worrisome outfield situation for me that seems to rely upon the hopes of Bradley Zimmer  being the real deal as a prospect ( I hope, but no prospect is a sure thing), Lonnie Chisenhall (I've never been as big of a fan of his as others are) to put up his half season 2017 numbers over an entire 2018 campaign and as mentioned above Brantley to stay healthy and just approach past performance, but he would have added a veteran bat to the depth chart and gave the Indians a little bit of wiggle room.

As for the Giants, I think the Giants are setting the righthanded-hitting Jackson up to share time in center and do not plan on handing him the full-time job there.
I think that they would love for it to be rookie lefty batter Steven Duggar that splits the job with Jackson because they really like Duggar, he'll be cost-conscious (rookie minimum) and he is very strong with the glove.
The question that Duggar brings to spring training is basically this- will he hit enough to be able to carry him right away and will the spring tell the Giants enough to know?
After all- Duggar has a grand total of 59 at-bats above AA ( 54 with AAA Sacramento and 5 with the Giants), so they will need to feel good about that answer either now or later before making the decision to go with Duggar, keep the glove first Gorkys Hernandez (they'd rather not since he's a righthanded hitter like Jackson), mine the dollar store free agent outfielder bin, perhaps sign a 4A type outfielder coming into April or make a trade soon, but no matter the decision, one thing is certain-whatever the decision, it will be someone that bats lefthanded.

Next post- Barring breaking news, I plan on writing about the Browns hiring Todd Haley as the new offensive coordinator and more importantly the play caller...