Blue Jays: Four roster moves the club should already be considering

4. Alejandro Kirk should get the bulk of the starts at catcher over Danny Jansen

At the start of the 2023 season, the Jays were confident in their catching tandem of Alejandro Kirk and Danny Jansen, as both had a breakout year in 2022, with Kirk winning a Silver Slugger award and Jansen putting up his best numbers in his career. That was what gave Jays’ management the luxury to deal away Gabriel Moreno to the Arizona Diamondbacks to upgrade their outfield. However, so far this season, Jansen has been off to a horrid start. 

Outside of the one productive game Jansen just had this past Sunday against Rays where he produced two hits and one RBI, he had only one hit all season with one run scored and three RBI up to that point. It appears as though he is starting to revert back to the version we witnessed in the pre-2022 years where he struggled at the plate. Rather than be almost an automatic out each game, it should be time to give Kirk more starts at catcher instead, rather than just platooning with Jansen, as Kirk is hitting .243 with one homer, nine RBI, four runs scored and eight walks, maintaining more or less his average output from the previous year. Jansen can then work out his issues in his spot starts for Kirk, as well as some time perhaps as the DH, platooning with Brandon Belt.

Honorable mention:

An honorable mention goes out to Nate Pearson, who has been crushing it down in Buffalo. Other than one subpar outing, Pearson has accumulated a 2.84 ERA, giving up two earned runs, with 14 strikeouts over 6.1 innings. More importantly, he has his blazing fastball working for him and appears healthy and strong again for once. What’s keeping him from joining the big league team already is currently the Jays don’t have a candidate they desperately need to send down right away. On the bubble to watch out for would probably be Trevor Richards and Anthony Bass. Richards struggled at first, but has had a decent recent couple of outings, whereas Bass has struggled for quite a while now. Any more faltering, Pearson would get his ticket back into town.