Jansen isn’t stupid enough to masturbate in a Wal-Mart parking lot and that’s a pretty big plus.
Blue Jays Discussion: Joe Panik traded for the reliever we need.
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djdev
Registered User
i mean, one of these things is not like the other lol. i dont see the similarities at all. theres good reason(whether its true or not) to believe jansen is what he is at this point. vlad was always a VERY different story from the day he was drafted.
For the record, this three year stretch of low BABIP includes about one full season of PA.
It really isn't that big of a sample. The overall results have been poor enough that he shouldn't just be handed the full-time job, but I still think it's too early to give up on him.
(Also, quick reminder that when you include the two playoff games against TB, he had a mid-90s wRC+ last year despite that sub-.200 BABIP. That's perfectly fine for a catcher.)
That's not the rationale being presented, but sure, any opportunity to patronize, right?
The ACTUAL rationale being presented is: we have Kirk. We have Moreno. McGuire is doing just fine. Why keep Jansen when people are willing to trade for him? Again, as I have stated, even if Jansen (and Tellez) were hitting well, I'd STILL suggest trading them. You trade from positions of strength to shore up positions of weakness. We have plenty of right handed hitting catchers. We have ONE decent left handed one. Do you guys get it, yet?
That said, now that McGuire looks good, teams are probably calling about him. In which case...yeah, sure, trade him, but only if we're talking about a big time pitcher, and I'd still rather have the guy that doesn't need to keep upgrading his glasses every year.
THIS.
Now, this is how you properly use a "THIS" post. Vladdy's situation was the polar opposite of McGuire's. The 1B/DH spot was pretty much a black hole in the wake of Smoak's departure and Vlad and Rowdy complemented each other perfectly. There wasn't this line-up of awesome hitting prospects behind them and Vlad (and Tellez) were still hitting decently. Pretty much how rookies are expected to hit. Jansen has pretty much been flat for three years, this is actually not the first little streak McGuire has been, AND Kirk will hit better than all of them.
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djdev
Registered User
lol i was stunned when he used that comparison, because the two situations couldnt be more polar opposite lol.
a generational level hitting prospect vs tellez and 2 catchers that have been relatively even in their careers up until this point, with arguments to be made for both. the only real difference is mcguire actually being touted as MUCH better prospect when they were both drafted(14th vs 475th). lol, what a reach.
Yeah, I thought this site was populated mostly by old geezers so I'm surprised to see the usual internet stuff.
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trellaine201
Registered User
Did you guys just see Dylan Bundy behind the mound? Yikes. Sick as a dog. Search it out lol. Hope he’s ok.
Canada4Gold
Registered User
- Dec 22, 2010
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GCL started up today. Aka the FCL now apparently(Florida Complex League). Machado and De Castro there as the best position players. D'Orazio, and Mesia 2 potentially notable catchers. Pardinho, and one of my favorites Michael Dominguez on the roster as pitchers. Of note Axford started today with the 1 inning. Machado had 1 at bat in the 1st and was immediately removed for a pinch runner. That's seems odd.
phillipmike
Registered User
- Oct 27, 2009
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BA has Jays taking Andrew Painter. Wonder if they bring in Chris Carpenter to mentor him.
Painter went to the same high school as Roy Halladay’s son, Braden who was drafted by the Jays in 2019 but didn’t sign. I don’t think Painter and Halladay played together but there is a Jays connection here.
Coming from the same school where they didn’t play together my not constitute a Jays connection but there have been only 3 players drafted from that high school; Halladay’s son, Miguel Cairo’s son and a 3rd player I can’t remember. I’m sure the Jays have a few scouts in that neighbourhood because of Halladay.
dredeye
BJ Elitist/Hipster
- Mar 3, 2008
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It would be smart to have him teach him the tricks of the tradeBA has Jays taking Andrew Painter. Wonder if they bring in Chris Carpenter to mentor him.
Kirk has 64 ABs above A-ball and is a defensive question mark plus his body type and durability make it possible he's a DH long-term.
Moreno isn't ready yet and won't be here for another year.
Again, if/when either of those guys proves they can rake and handle MLB pitching on a consistent basis, absolutely they should be handed the starting reins.
In the meantime, McGuire is doing 'just fine' because of a total fluke stretch where his BABIP far higher than his hard-hit ball percentage. He isn't a great hitter and could instantly turn back into the .073 pumpkin we saw last year. And probably will, in short order.
Jansen has better hitting metrics than McGuire and is a better bet to hit at this level going forward. And is a better defensive catcher. Banking on this hot streak to dump Jansen to go with McGuire and question marks is not smart.
Also Jansen's value is tanked right now because of his slow start. You sell high, not sell when a good young catcher is injured after an unlucky .150 stretch.
The Nemesis
Semper Tyrannus
The one thing about Jansen is that he has a career .223 BABIP across 223 games and almost 750 PA.
It's mind-boggling that you can have a player that manages to have that bad of a run of luck on balls in play consistently over parts of 4 seasons. For as much as BABIP is generally not in the control of a player and tends to swing somewhat independently of what a player actually does at the plate.
The exception to that is usually guys with heavy GB tendencies where their balls in play are easily defended with put-out options at 1st. But that's not Jansen. He's usually towards the middle or lower end of the GB spectrum for the Jays.
The fact that Jansen is performing so badly at the plate so regularly without and obvious flaw or quirk in his batted ball profile or plate approach is bizarre. Logic says he should dig himself out of this funk sooner or later when you also figure he was a bat-first catcher coming up through the system. But logic also suggests that after this many plate appearances we can't just go "yeah this is weird and should correct itself sooner or later.
TheBeastCoast
Registered User
It really does make my head hurt how fast some Jays fans want to dump Jansen. The lack of awareness to just take a peak around the entirety of major league baseball and see just how lucky we are to be in a position to be complaining about our young plus defense catcher isn't hitting well enough for us. I don't have a problem if the decision is made in the future is that we move on from Jansen as it is an organizational strength but Jansen walks on and is a starter on like half the teams in major league baseball right now.
Like I said, I think this is true ... to an extent. To the extent that we can write off Jansen being an above-average MLB hitter. And maybe his BABIP will always be low ... but not this low.
It's clearly unlucky, and he isn't going to hit .150 in the longer term. Or have a .223 BABIP. Like, Ryu is at .314. Robbie Ray is at .273. Being at .223 is unheard-of especially for someone with his minor-league pedigree.
5 years from now, I expect we'll see him normalize as a guy with an 80-90 OPS+ who hits well enough to stay in the game as a solid defensive catcher.
dredeye
BJ Elitist/Hipster
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Great rant but I don't think anyone said he has no value. We are talking about his lack of a bat. Someone suggested it's best to trade him over Reese because of his eye problems and because he's a right handed bat and reese is a left handed bat. I don't think those points are off the mark. No one is trying to run him out of town and the talk of trading him is because of his perceived value around the league and our depth at catcher right now.
SDig14
Registered User
I'd actually be fine dealing Kirk for help somewhere, but all the proposals I've read that include him seem like not great value. They didn't seem eager to deal him to Pittsburgh for Musgrove, and management clearly thinks very highly of him, so if he is dealt it should be for a very solid piece.
djdev
Registered User
i believe somebody posted this earlier but they are kinda reminiscent of the 15' jays who went on that crazy run. they were 2 games under .500 at the allstar break i believe but they went and got tulo who was a HUGE upgrade defensively over reyes and some bullpen help and price obviously. this team actually has a pretty simple fix, if you can fix the bullpen i think we can challenge for the playoffs, although similar to 15' our defense has held us back as well. im torn whether or not to try and go for it this year or wait and hopefully rebuild the pen and get a new manager in the offseason. time will tell i suppose.
The Nemesis
Semper Tyrannus
The thing I look at is that it's been parts of 4 years. Almost 750 PAs. Nobody has been this bad for this sustained of a period before and had it be a blip on the radar. Over the last 10 years, nobody with at least 700 PAs has put up a BABIP as bad as Jansen. At some point we have to acknowledge that this can't entirely be built on luck and randomness and start considering that there's some weird fundamental issue with him that's preventing him from hitting MLB pitching. Guys don't normally go on extended BABIP benders, good or bad unless there's something driving that trend. Or at least if they have a bad BABIP over a long period it's usually a couple of terrible seasons weighing down better ones. But in Jansen's case he's gotten worse every year.
I'm not saying cut him now while we don't exactly have any real alternatives (because McGuire doesn't count until he shows he can handle it over the long term) but I'm left to wonder how much longer we can play the "don't worry, it'll sort itself out" card with Jansen before we look back and realize that we're 6 or 7 years deep into his career and it's still a thing.
The Nemesis
Semper Tyrannus
I expect them to buy, but not buy like crazy. The whole MO of this front office has been sustainability. That doesn't come from going all in on some crazy landscape-shifting trades that empty the cupboard of prospects. And it's less necessary with the 2021 Jays who are the youngest team in baseball in terms of position players as it was with the 2015 Jays who were one of the oldest.
I expect that they're going to look at making some shrewd moves to bring in help for the bench and the pen and maybe a decent starter. But this isn't likely to go the way of Anthopoulos throwing prospects at teams like candy to get every big name he can. If not jumping to the head of the line for 2021 means the team can keep bringing in waves of reinforcements and slowly claw its way to the top of the mountain over the next 2-5 years and stay there for a while, it'll be worth it.
Canada4Gold
Registered User
- Dec 22, 2010
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There was an article in the offseason that suggested he hits a lot of balls in the 80-90 mph range at about 30-40 degrees. Which is essentially a routine fly ball most of the time. That same article compared him profile to a lot of good hitters though, and nobody is bad enough to have a BABIP as low as his as been. Literally you could pluck someone off the street and they wouldn't make any contact but when they did they'd have a BABIP higher than Jansen it's weird.
I've said it a couple times but with his options if Kirk comes back hitting well and McGuire still is I wouldn't totally be against just giving him a month in Buffalo, tell him just play DH and focus on hitting. See if he can figure something out
Some guy has to be the unluckiest guy ever. And this seems to be Jansen.
Again, he might not profile as the above-average hitter people hoped for when he broke in. But your average pitcher has a higher BABIP than this. It's absurd.
He does make quite a bit of soft contact. But he was also getting robbed on hard-hit balls with regularity in April. And conversely right now McGuire is dropping soft-hit balls all over the place.
TheMadHatTrick
Registered User
- Nov 2, 2008
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Hopefully McGuire rubs off on Jansen a little.
Unlucky is hitting a ball into the air just as a blast of wind knocks it down, or hitting some little stone that causes a sneaky single to skip right into a fielder's glove. Constantly hitting the ball directly into fielders all the time isn't just bad luck. It's bad bat control. We had no trouble accepting Vlady had swing path issues when he was hitting grounders all the time. Why not Jansen?
People used to always say Pillar was just really unlucky. Yeah, unlucky. Constantly hitting balls to the third baseman. Minor league third basemen couldn't catch them, but major leaguers had no problem. So unlucky...or maybe he just couldn't handle a bat well enough to figure out how to hit it anywhere else.
No, we're not. We're talking about having a bunch of great looking young catchers, and which ones would be worth trading for long term pitching help. Between Jansen, Kirk, who looks like Vlady light, and Moreno, who looks like he'll be great all around, I'd rather trade Jansen. Kirk can always just slide over to DH in a couple years.
It's already been revealed the Jays are being pretty aggressive, so, yes, they are.
I never said Moreno was ready. Never said Kirk was good defensively. I've said Kirk was a future DH a few times, now. I've stated outright Reese hasn't proven himself to be a starter because I've always been looking at him as a BACKUP. My exact words were "give him a couple years to prove himself before we hand him the crown". I believe catchers should be good defensive, experienced game callers, but people around here constantly ignore that aspect and look at the offense, so, okay, play Kirk. And I've never once mentioned Jansens's hitting "metrics", or his hitting in general, versus Reese. Because I don't care. That has nothing to do with what I'm saying. Sell low? We already know teams were asking for Jansen, and last I checked, this site is huge on value evaluations, so we know the value is there regardless of his current stats. And, hey, I still acknowledged Reese's value is inflated.
And not smart? Improving the pitching isn't smart?
Seriously, dude, read a little more carefully before you patronize people.
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Jansen is just an outright bad hitter - doesn't barrel the ball and even when he doesn't he still doesn't hit it hard. King of medium contact, which means king of outs at the MLB level.
I have been all aboard the Jansen train for years but when you're in a compete window you don't have time to give AB's to fringe players who are "unlucky." He's the third best catcher on this roster when everyone is healthy and should be treated as such.
I have been all aboard the Jansen train for years but when you're in a compete window you don't have time to give AB's to fringe players who are "unlucky." He's the third best catcher on this roster when everyone is healthy and should be treated as such.
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