Danny Jansen Has A Lot Of Offensive Potential
Danny Jansen has all the makings of being one of the best hitting catchers in baseball. He still needs more plate appearances for his plate discipline numbers to normalize, but the early results line up fairly close to what he did in the minors. Before tonight's game he had a 97.4% contact rate with pitches in the strike zone that would rank 2nd in baseball if he had enough plate appearances to qualify. His 6.6% swinging strike rate would rank 23rd. Jansen is no stranger to making contact. His 4.4% swinging strike rate in AAA this season ranked 2nd in the International League. In 2017 his 3.3% swinging strike rate at AA would have led the league had he spent enough time in the league to qualify for the batting title. What this all means is that Jansen should have one of the lowest strikeout rates in the majors. His current 11.8% strikeout rate would tie him with Buster Posey for 12th in the bigs. The sample size is small, but the numbers he has put up so far are in line with his minor league track record.
Not only does Jansen put the ball in play a lot, he also hits for power. In his first 9 games he already has 5 doubles and a home run. He had a .198 ISO in AAA this year before being called up and produced a .161 ISO in his breakout 2017 campaign. He should be able to produce at least league average power numbers, and possibly more. I'm a big fan of players who make a lot of contact because they are excellent candidates for power breakouts. Having the confidence that they won't swing and miss allows them to sell out for power earlier in counts. Jose Altuve and Jose Ramirez are a couple of examples of elite contact hitters who were able to increase their power output and become perennial MVP candidates. I obviously can't predict that Jansen will also have a similar power breakout, but he has a skillset that sometimes sees it happen. Like I said, he should at the very least provide average power.
In his short Major League career Jansen has just 1 walk, good for a 2.9% walk rate, but he is still many plate appearances shy of having that number stabilize to the point where we can gain any info from it. During his minor league career he ran a very solid 11.0% walk rate. It will be interesting to see how much of that walk rate translates to the majors. If he can get near double digits with his walk rate it will make him super valuable at the plate. His low strikeout rate will give him a high batting average and if he also has a high walk rate he'll be an OBP machine.
Jansen's low strikeout, solid power and high walk profile reminds me of Victor Martinez. The thing that concerns me about whether he can reach those heights is the fact that he may end up a low BABIP hitter. He's a dead pull hitter and hits a lot of infield flies which could limit the number of hits he gets when he puts the ball in play. If he's a true talent.270 BABIP hitter,his offensive ceiling will be much lower. He had a great 24.2% line drive rate in AAA this year and he will need plenty of line drives to makeup for the high number of infield fly automatic outs. I will be keeping a close eye on how his batted ball numbers look as he gains more experience.
The young catcher hit .275/.390/.473 in AAA before his call-up and his component numbers of 12.2 BB%, 13.6 K%, .198 ISO and .292 BABIP seem attainable in the majors meaning something similar to that triple slash line could be what we see from him going forward. Even if we adjust the OBP and SLG down those are still really good numbers for any hitter, let alone a catcher.
His defensive reputation is that of an average receiver. His bat is what will carry him and he appears to have the tools to be one of the top offensive catchers in the game. I wouldn't be surprised if he makes a few All-Star games over the course of his career. This may seem like an overly optimistic homer assessment, but the numbers back it up. He's going to make a lot of contact and put a bit of a sting into the ball.
