What to expect from Jansen with Blue Jays

The Toronto Blue Jays promoted catcher Danny Jansen to the Major Leagues ahead of Sunday's series finale against Tampa Bay. He was added to active roster in place of Yangervis Solarte, who was placed on the 10-day disabled list with a strained right oblique prior to Sunday's contest.
Jansen, the Blue Jays' No. 3 prospect and No. 73 on MLB Pipeline's Top 100 list, earned his first big league callup after a strong campaign at the Triple-A level. Over 88 games with Buffalo, the 23-year-old batted .275/.390/.473 with a career-high 12 home runs and 58 RBIs.
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A 16th-round pick in 2013 Draft out of the Wisconsin prep ranks who signed for $100,000, Jansen was beset by injuries early in his career. After logging 74 games across a pair of Rookie levels, during his first two seasons, he advanced to Class A Lansing in 2015, but he ultimately appeared in just 46 games after a broken bone in his left hand had cost him four months.
Assigned to Class A Advanced Dunedin the following year, Jansen once again missed considerable time with a left hand injury, spending nearly two months on the shelf after he suffered a broken hamate bone. It limited him to just 54 games in the Florida State League, during which he batted just .218.
Finally healthy in 2017, Jansen put forth a breakout campaign, hitting .323/.400/.484 while excelling across three levels including Triple-A Buffalo. He showed especially well at the Minors highest level, too, hitting .328/.423/.552 over 21 games with the Bisons.
More important, Jansen crossed the 100-games-played threshold for the first time in his career in 2017 after totaling 184 games during his first four pro seasons -- 100 of which had come at full-season levels.
Jansen had continued to make developmental strides this season in his return to the Triple-A level, earning International League midseason All-Star honors, and he also showcased his potential to a national audience by hitting a two-run home run for the U.S. squad during the prestigious SiriusXM All-Star Futures Game at Nationals Park in July.

From a scouting perspective, Jansen has worked hard towards becoming a well-rounded backstop, though it's likely that he'll always offer more value at the plate than behind it.
After continually tweaking his hitting mechanics early in his career with little success, Jansen reverted back to an older, simpler swing at the outset of the 2017 season, and he subsequently found his groove as a hitter, showing a knack for making consistent line-drive contact across the entire field from the right side of the plate. A .302 hitter over 192 Minor League games from 2017-18, he projects for an above-average bat in the big leagues, one capable of producing a .280-plus average with perennially high on-base rates thanks to his patient approach.
That approach stems from Jansen's advanced feel for controlling the strike zone, as he walked at a higher clip (10.4 percent) than he struck out (9.4) during his breakout 2017 campaign en route to an on-base percentage of .400. He improved his walk rate to 12.5 percent this season in his first full Triple-A campaign, and did so while striking out at a 13.6 percent clip.
Jansen's ability to hit for power is the one component of his offensive game that's yet to truly develop. He has made gains in that department in the past two seasons, though, setting career highs with 10 and 12 home runs in back-to-back years, respectively. The 6-foot-2, 225-pounder's combination of bat speed and physical strength yields above-average raw power to his pull side, and some evaluators believe he'll tap into it frequently enough to become a 12- to 15-homer threat annually as a big leaguer.
Defensively, Jansen has made impressive strides in his blocking, receiving and framing since signing, although his catch-and-throw skills may never be better than average. He threw out 24 percent of attempted basestealers in 2017 and had a similar success rate (23 percent) this season in Triple-A prior to his promotion. There is concern that Jansen will be challenged even more on that front as a big leaguer, though some scouts do believe that Jansen still has room for improvement after losing key developmental time early in his career.
Jansen's promotion to the big leagues now gives the Blue Jays three catchers on their 25-man roster, although Russell Martin is expected to see increased reps at both second and third base in Solarte's absence. That could lead to more opportunities behind the plate for Jansen, who's expected to share time with Martin's current backup, Luke Maile. Martin's $20 million salary for next season does cloud Jansen's outlook a bit, but there's reason to believe that the young backstop would benefit under the tutelage of the veteran Martin.
At the least, Jansen's solid tools on both sides of the ball point to a career as a big league backup who offers the bulk of his value by hitting for average and reaching base at a high clip. But given his aptitude for making adjustments, there's a real possibility that he'll surpass that somewhat conservative projection and develop into an everyday catcher at the highest level.