Danny Jansen Will Be Fine
Danny Jansen will be fine. Despite his struggles at the plate, Jansen is quietly having a promising season. Coming into the season Jansen's biggest question mark was his defence. He has made drastic improvements behind the plate. His pitch framing ranks 4th out of 16 qualified catchers. His blocking has been above average, and his control of the running game has been roughly average. According to Fangraph's he has provided the 5th most value behind the plate and 6th most value according to Baseball Prospectus.
A less talked about part of his game is his baserunning. Among catchers with at least 200 plate appearances he has provided the 3rd most value on the basepaths. He has the 6th fastest sprint speed among all catchers in the majors and is actually above the league average.
It has been his sub-par hitting that has drawn the most attention. Yet there is reason for hope there. His plate discipline has not suffered during his slump. He is chasing almost an identical amount of balls out of the zone compared to last year and is actually being more aggressive inside the zone.
Earlier in the year I was concerned about his unusually high (for him) swinging strike rate. The increase in swinging strikes obviously led to an increase in strikeouts. However, his swinging strike rate has begun to normalize toward what we are used to seeing from him. In his last 100 at bats he has a 6.9% SwStr% which is right in line with last year's 6.8%.
Jansen has severely underperformed his batted ball data. He has a .261 wOBA for the year, which is a far cry from his .314 xwOBA. Last year we saw Grichuk and Morales way underperform their xwOBA's early in the season and we all know how they finished. In his last 100 at bats where he has improved his swinging strike rate he has had a .351 xwOBA. This spans his past 31 games played, and he is showing skills that he has displayed in the past so I think it is very possible for him to maintain a lot of what he has done over these past 31 games.
Jansen's .229 BABIP is unusually low. I don't expect him to run above average BABIPs due to a pull-happy approach and a relatively high number of infield flies, but .229 is simply unlucky and we should expect that number to improve. His .246 expected batting average is much better than his current .196 and is a good reflection of how unlucky he has been on balls in play.
Jansen's hard hit rate is more than double what it was last year when he produced a 115 wrc+. The power should start to come as he continues to make more contact. Balls will find more holes and extra bases will follow. He was hitting too many groundballs earlier in the season, but he is getting the ball off the ground a lot more recently.
Most fans are disappointed with Jansen's season so far, but I really like what I'm seeing after looking under the hood at the underlying numbers. The offensive skills that made him a top prospect are still there and he has emerged to become a borderline elite defensive catcher. I think the bat will come around, so if he can maintain his gains behind the plate the Jays will have a very solid catcher on their hands. I was very pleasantly surprised to see so many positive signs in what has been a very discouraging season for him so far.
