With a clear need at catcher, the Blue Jays could use a Danny Jansen reunion

Ever since the day the Toronto Blue Jays traded him to the Boston Red Sox, Danny Jansen has felt like an ideal reunion candidate for the Jays. The 29-year-old spent the first seven or so years of his big league career in Toronto before spending the second half of the 2024 campaign on another AL East squad.

Jansen and Alejandro Kirk paired together perfectly behind the plate. Typically, teams have one clear cut starting catcher and a backup who either hits for power or plays well above-average defense behind the dish. Very rarely do you find two catchers who both can hit and both can play defense like these two did. The Blue Jays were spoiled with this tandem, and the fact of the matter is that the duo could be back in action as soon as 2025.

A Blue Jays-Danny Jansen reunion makes way too much sense

After the trade deadline passed, Kirk took over as the Blue Jays' No. 1 catcher and ran away with the gig. His bat got hot and he hit .321 in July, .244 in August and then .297 over the final 20 games of the season. This stretch of play, paired with his 95th percentile finish in caught basestealers and 93rd in framing and you've got yourself one hell of a starting backstop.

Behind Kirk, though, there's problems. The Blue Jays just lost the light-hitting Brian Serven to minor league free agency and currently have the unproven Nick Raposo and decent-but-not-great Tyler Heineman on-hand as the only other catchers on the 40-man roster.

The need for another catcher is very obvious. It makes all the sense in the world for the club to go with a player they drafted, developed and trusted behind the plate for more than half a decade. Jansen and Kirk could be in another time share in 2025, but this time around Kirk has more than earned the majority of the reps behind the plate.

Jansen's biggest hit to his value has always been his durability. He gets hit by a ton of pitches and goes on the shelf frequently because of it, so he can't exactly be relied upon to be the Blue Jays' top catcher on the depth chart. That's fine, though, as him and Kirk go so well together as a pair.

Throughout his career, Jansen has made it into 100 or more games just one time. Even still, he's hit double-digit home run totals four times and has a career OPS+ of 99, which puts him one percent below league-average. He's got some thump in his bat and finished in the 100th percentile in Blocking this past season, so why not take another shot at him and bring the gang back together for another go-round?

The biggest problem with this plan is the fact that Jansen is going to be arguably the best-available catcher on the open market. The Blue Jays are from the only club that could use a catcher, but the competition is surely going to be stiff for Jansen's services.