The season that was: Danny Jansen

Danny Jansen has now had six seasons with the Blue Jays. In 2022, he had his first very good season with the bat. We were hoping he would build on that this season.

The stat that stands out is the 10 hit-by-pitch.

Baseball Reference has him at a 1.6 WAR. FanGraphs at 2.0, giving him a value of $16 million to the Jays.

He had a .336 wOBA and a 116 wRC+ (down from .366 and 141.

Danny’s walk rate was 7.6% (down from 10.1) and his strikeout rate was 20.6% (up from 17.7).

His line drive rate was 13.6% (down from 15.9), ground ball rate 34.0% (up from 33.5) and fly ball rate 52.4% (up from 50.6). His fly balls were leaving the park 15.7% of the time (down from 16.9).

Jansen’s hard contact rate was 35.0% (down from 41.5), and the soft contact rate was 18.9% (down from 22.2).

Danny’s BABIP was .233 (down from last year’s .255). He’s always had a low BABIP (Career number is .238).

Jansen hit left-handers at all (.205/.279/.513) about as well as RHP (.237/.236/.458).

He hit better at home (.244/.345/.488) than on the road (.214/.283/.462). He’s always been better at home.

Danny hit .254/.321/.465 with RISP.

He hit better in the second half (.230/.368/.494) than in the first half (.227/.282/.464).

Jansen by month:

• April: .179/.246/.375 with 3 home runs, 5 walks, and 15 strikeouts in 18 games.
• May: .231/.296/.446 with 3 home runs, 6 walks and 13 strikeouts in 18 games.
• June: .227/.244/.546 with 4 home runs, 1 walk and 14 strikeouts in 14 games.
• July: 275/.362/.569 with 4 home runs, 4 walks and 10 strikeouts in 19 games.
• August: 225/.397/.408 with 2 home runs, 7 walks and 10 strikeouts in 16 games.
• September: .333/.333/1.333 with 1 home run, 0 walks and 0 strikeouts in 1 game.

Where he hit in the order in games he started:

• 4th: 2 games.
• 5th: 4 games.
• 6th: 12 games.
• 7th: 19 games.
• 8th: 35 games.

On defense? He was caught in 73 games. He made 6 errors (.990 FA). He caught 13% of base stealers (way down from last year’s 27%). The league average was 21%.

He had 1 passed ball and 19 wild pitches against him.

Danny was two runs above average in framing (by Baseball Savant). FanGraphs has him 1.4 in framing, putting him 9th out of 17 AL catchers with 500 or more innings caught (Kirk was second).

Jays pitchers had a 4.03 ERA with Jansen behind the plate (3.40 with Kirk).

As a base runner, FanGraphs has him at 0.8 runs better than average. Pretty good for a catcher.

The Jays were 40-32 in games he started. His longest hitting streak was 8 games. The longest on-base streak was 15 games. The longest without a home run was 13 games.

Danny Jansen is one of the very few Jays-drafted catchers to actually play a bunch of games for the team (Kirk was an international free agent).

Danny Jansen has now played in 409 games for the Blue Jays. Catchers ahead of him on the Jays leader board are:

• Russell Martin: 447
• Buck Martinez: 454
• Gregg Zaun: 535
• Darrin Fletcher: 540
• Pat Borders: 747
• Ernie Whitt: 1218

The only one drafted by the Jays was Pat Borders.

Jansen will be a free agent after the season. The team hasn’t talked to him about an extension. It is likely smart that they see how things go this year.

He seems a magnet for pitches when he is at the plate, being hit by ten pitches this year (his season high before this year was 4). And he missed the last month of the season with a broken finger, not from being hit by pitch, but by being hit by a foul tip.

Before the season we asked:

• If the over/under on Danny Jansen’s games played is 109, I’d take the...66% of us were right picking the under.
• If the over/under on Jansen’s home runs is 21, I’d take the....54% of us were right taking the under.
• Who catches the most innings for the Jays? 34% were right picking Kirk.