Tampa Bay Rays quickly learning the Danny Jansen reality that Blue Jays already knew 

Danny Jansen was a popular player during his time with the Toronto Blue Jays. Not only was his welcoming smile a pleasant sight for Blue Jays fans, but his timely hitting in clutch situations easily made him a resounding fan favourite to cheer for. However, Jansen’s troubles hitting for a high average, maintaining consistent production, as well as having some slight defensive deficiencies in his game has prevented him from becoming one of the top catchers in the game.

Now with the Tampa Bay Rays for the 2025 MLB season, Rays fans are quickly learning that same Jansen reality that Blue Jays fans were all too familiar with. In 45 games so far this year that has included 42 starts, the veteran 30-year-old catcher has mustered just a feeble .197 average, .660 OPS, along with 15 runs scored, five doubles, five home runs, 14 RBIs and 40 strikeouts in just 137 at-bats. At the current pace, those numbers would be way below his career averages. In addition, his current 24.8% strikeout rate is also the highest mark in any season of his professional baseball career.

Tampa Bay Rays quickly learning the Danny Jansen reality that Blue Jays already knew 

As for his defense, Jansen’s weakness in throwing out baserunners has been exposed once again as opposing teams have already stolen 39 bases in 50 attempts in his 45 games behind the plate for an alarming 78% success rate. Just to add insult to injury, Jansen has also committed five errors already on the year to tie for the American League lead. His current .986 fielding percentage would put him on pace for the lowest mark of his career.

One thing that the Blue Jays did to maximize Jansen’s abilities and effectiveness was playing him in a platoon role with Alejandro Kirk for the bulk of his time with Toronto. As a result, the power and clutch hitting of Jansen would be balanced by the defensive prowess and sweet contact hitting of Kirk, which often threw opposing teams off guard, depending on how they were deployed.

However, the Rays have utilized Jansen as their main starter, leading to a heavy workload. For comparison, initial Rays backup catcher Ben Rortvedt had started in less than half of the amount of games compared to Jansen. It also didn’t help that Rortvedt has struggled even more immensely with his hitting, posting a dismal .095 average, .297 OPS, along with zero home runs and just six RBIs in 26 total games played. Consequently, the increased exposure of Jansen has enabled their opponents to capitalize on his deficiencies and have likely cost the Rays a game or two as a result.

Now with Matt Thaiss sharing the backstop duties with Jansen after coming over from the Chicago White Sox in a trade, and the subsequent DFA of Rortvedt, the Rays will hope the deployment of their new duo will help both players in increasing their production. As Tampa attempts to work out their catcher situation with Jansen, the Jays on the other hand don’t really need to worry about that problem anymore since it’s in someone else’s hands. More importantly, for Toronto’s newly anointed starter at catcher this season in Kirk, let’s just say he is doing absolutely fine without Jansen in 2025.