Jansen can see majors from here
Top catching prospect credits glasses for boost toward big-league duty
BUFFALO— Chris Rowley takes full credit for Danny Jansen’s success at the plate in recent years.
The pair were driving home from a Florida State League game with the Dunedin Blue Jays in 2016 when the pitcher rattled off the directions of a street sign. The catcher couldn’t make out the words.
“I was like, ‘You can read that?’ and he was like, ‘Yeah. You can’t? You probably need glasses, man,’ ” Jansen, now Rowley’s teammate with Triple-A Buffalo, recalled this week.
It wasn’t the first time Jansen had noticed his vision faltering. He first made note of it during a spring training game against the Philadelphia Phillies in 2016. From where he was sitting in the bullpen, the neon lights of the scoreboard were blurry. But he stubbornly chalked it up to being tired and went the whole year without getting his eyes checked. It was weeks later, after the season ended and he went back home, that Jansen went to an optometrist and was diagnosed with astigmatism, which can result in blurred or distorted vision.
Fitted for sports glasses, Jansen hit .323 in 2017 after averaging .218 a year earlier.
He advanced from the Class-A Advanced Dunedin Blue Jays to the Double-A New Hampshire Fisher Cats to the Bisons last year. This season in Buffalo, he was hitting .315 heading into Friday’s game.
The Jays’ No. 6 prospect according to MLB Pipeline, Jansen — who is on Toronto’s 40man roster — could be an option for a big-league role should No. 1 catcher Russell Martin continue as a utility player as he finishes out his contract over the next two seasons.
“I claim it,” Rowley joked of the success his friend and “roommate since forever” is having.
Jansen, 23, guessed the glasses accounted for 70 per cent of his improvement at the plate. Staying healthy is another thing — he played in 104 games in 2017, four fewer than the 110 he managed in 2015 and 2016 combined — along with a better ap- proach at the plate.
“Last year was the first year I played a full season,” Jansen said. “I realized that you don’t have to hit the panic button early. I was fortunate enough this year, I started off pretty well so I didn’t really slump right off the get-go, but I know what it’s like to struggle. I know what it’s like to not do well for a long period of time, and you want to just hit the panic button right away, but it’s a long season so you’ve just got to stick with it day by day and do everything day by day.”
This year, Jansen has caught a wide variety of pitchers, something he says he’s comfortable with after moving up the ladder in the system.
“Triple A’s a different animal because Triple A’s got guys that have been to the big leagues and they have a lot of experience and I want to pick their brain, and I was the young guy that came up,” Jansen said. “I had to learn quick ... I struggled a little bit with it, trying to get on the same page with some of the older guys. Coming into this year, a lot of these guys I’ve played with — and if I didn’t play with them years prior, I played with them in spring and I caught them a little bit — so you build that relationship earlier.”
He hopes to keep developing that flexibility, which should serve him well should he make the big leagues.
“I’m just trying to get better and better and really trying to master the catching craft. If I’m lucky enough to go up, then I have a solid base of skills in general and knowing pitchers and knowing how to adapt to new guys, older guys, all that stuff.”
Jansen would also be interested in picking the brains of Jays veterans Martin and Luke Maile. He watched some video of big-league pitchers with Maile in spring training, and watches the Jays play to see how they call games, but hasn’t had a chance to get really in depth with either catcher ahead of him on the depth chart.
One thing he won’t be looking for from Martin is tips on how to play third base, shortstop and left field. “It’s been a long time,” Jansen said with a laugh. “Russ is a special athlete.”