Blue Jays catcher Danny Jansen has been diagnosed with a fracture of the pisiform bone in his right wrist, manager John Schneider revealed to reporters today (X links via Keegan Matheson of MLB.com). He was hit by a pitch during the Jays’ Grapefruit League game earlier this week. The team currently expects him to miss a “couple weeks,” though he has a follow-up appointment today that could reveal more information.
That could point to a season-opening stint on the injured list, though the team has yet to specifically state as much. Sportsnet’s Hazel Mae tweets that the Jays will likely lean on non-roster catchers Payton Henry and Brian Serven to back up starting catcher Alejandro Kirk in the interim. If Jansen indeed opens the season on the injured list, Toronto will need to clear a 40-man roster spot to select the contract of either player.
It’s not an ideal start in what’ll be Jansen’s walk year before free agency. The soon-to-be 29-year-old backstop has been a steadily above-average offensive contributor — particularly relative to his position — over the past three seasons but routinely been hit with injuries along the way.
Since 2021, Jansen carries a stout .237/.317/.487 batting line with 43 home runs in 754 trips to the plate. He’s walked at a respectable 8.6% clip along the way, and his 19.9% strikeout rate is a few ticks lower than the league average. By measure of wRC+, Jansen’s been 21% better than an average hitter over the past three seasons. Considering the average catcher has been about 11-12% worse than average at the plate, Jansen’s contributions with the bat are all the more impressive.
From a defensive standpoint, Jansen is solid. He typically draws average or slightly better marks for his pitch framing at both FanGraphs and Statcast. He’s been a bit below average in terms of controlling the running game (career 22% caught-stealing rate), but Statcast rates Jansen (and Kirk, for that matter) as one of the game’s best at blocking balls in the dirt.
Both Henry and Serven joined the Jays organization in the offseason. The former inked a minor league deal after spending his career to date with the Brewers and Marlins. He hit .294/.341/.454 in 255 Triple-A games last season with the Brewers. He’s yet to make his MLB debut. Serven was a waiver claim who’s played his entire career in the Rockies organization. He appeared in 62 games with the 2022 Rockies and another 11 games last year, batting a combined .195/.248/.314 in 228 trips to the plate. In 534 career Triple-A plate appearances, he’s a .238/.305/.450 hitter.
Injury prone. A really solid mlb catcher though.
Of course *facepalm
Arghhhhh
From Cranston?
Yeah ya know her?
PSH YEAH I KNOW HER, I mean I remember you talking about her…
Could be an opening to start that Moreno kid….oh….crap….
He’s banged up too!
How many of his injuries are due to hbp?
…getting out of hand?
Get Well Soon Danny….
If somebody said he broke his pisiform bone, I would think, “No,, there isn’t really a bone in there?!?!”
Most injury prone player in MLB history. He must have some type of brittle bone disease or something of the sort. Also that Moreno trade was always awful but it somehow gets worse every day.
It’s like a broken record at this point. This is at least the third time in the last few seasons he’s broken his hand getting hit catching or batting.
At this point, Jansen needs the Vladdy armor treatment. Jansen has been pigheaded and insists on batting with no gloves or protection and has been hurt by HBP at least 7 times. Adapt, improvise and overcome!
He was wearing a protective pad on his hand during that at bat. The other hand. He got hit on the back wrist. You can’t protect every millimeter with armor and still swing.
I think its at least worth mentioning Serven is batting 308./400 /923 this spring with a pair of homers and 10 runs driven in.
its spring and his track record is atrocious. He will be lucky to hit .200/300/700 during the year.
if i could get 200/300/700 production out of my starting catcher I’d be happy, let alone out of my third catcher
i said he would be lucky to get that. His career OPS is 562 and OBP is 248. He stinks.
Thanks for clarifying. I’m sure it would be hard for any catcher to maintain a 700 slugging percentage
LMAO at using spring training stats to make your argument.
Casuals gonna casual I guess.
He didn’t make a point tho did he? He said it was worth mentioning he didn’t make a statement or argument that he’s a good catcher did he? Lmao
Never heard of him lol
Jansen? And you are an MLB/Yankee fan? This would be the equivalent of Jays fan saying they have never heard of Gleyber Torres or if we are talking positionally, Gary Sanchez when he was the NYY primary catcher.
I’ve heard of Smittywerbenyangermanjansen
This isn’t related, but just thinking about the Jays… Schneider has to be an early hot seat contender, right? His FO isn’t doing him any favors either, though.
Yeah, other than assembling one of the best starting rotations & the best defense in all of baseball, i can understand how you might’ve come to that conclusion. JFC
You’re right, and then they underperformed like crazy. Usually the manager takes the fall for a team underperforming that much. You can’t sit here and tell me the 2023 Jays met your expectations, lol. They’re up there with the Mets in that regard.
But they also got worse on paper this off-season, so I would understand if you think Schneider is safe and the blame would fall more on the FO for 2024.
I highly doubt he’s on the hot seat, he took an under performing team in 22 and turned them into a playoff team. His cy young candidate from 22 fell off a cliff in 23 and some core players didn’t hit and they still made the playoffs.
I’m sure Shapiro takes the entire season and then makes decisions on every one after the season
Hard to say. I’d put him in the very lukewarm seat along with Boone and even Dave Roberts. I think the hot seats belong to Servais and Marmol.
Should be Marmol.
Danny Jansen cracked his Pisiform?
Why wasn’t he wearing his cup?
Of course…because it’s not officially baseball season until Jansen suffers some kind of hand/wrist injury.
Why people are surprised by this I do not know. Jansen is injured every year and plays in roughly 75ish games a year. The big question is why do the Blue Jays not have a third catcher already on the 40 man roster? Its not like this is a new thing to them.
I don’t think anyone is expressing surprise.
At this point, everyone is aware of his luck with injuries.
They’ll have a 3rd catcher on the roster by opening day. They’re doing spring tryouts as many teams do for the 3rd string catcher. There’s no need to declare who it’ll be until their comfortable with the decision.
Your missing the point…This is “suppose to be” a team competing for a playoff spot, so to suggest they were not aware that Jansen would get hurt and IF he did they would try some people out in Spring Training and go from there is not good enough. They should have had a MLB backup catcher for Kirk going into Spring Training knowing that at some point Jansen will get hurt and they were going to need him.. To suggest otherwise is poor Front Office planning.
Which major league caliber catcher that was available this off-season do you think they could have gotten to agree to sign to be a 3rd string/minor league depth option.
The guys they have are the type of guys that would have signed such a deal.
Serven looks interesting. Doubt they could have gotten anyone dramatically better
Why not, they did every other year, McGuire, Rob Brantly, Tyler Hienamen (whom they had and lost) to name a few and there were other backups out on the market that sat for a time before signing.
As for Severn he looks OK in ST but I do not know much about him and to say he is better than the other option that we had in the past remains to be seen BUT if he is that good he should be added to the roster because as I have said, it is not IF Jansen gets injured but when.
Also the fact that a team is willing to put a player on the 40man roster makes it more appealing for those players (such as some backup catchers) to sign..and often time it helps bring in those more proven players.
IMO they should have added a legit backup and moved Jansen to the third string catcher/DH/bat of the bench.role
As usual your opinion on Jansen isn’t worth much.
I don’t know if it’s the wrong Payton Henry listed or not, but I’d assume it is the right one and baseball reference shows that he did make his MLB debut already with the Marlins. I’m confused. If he has been with Milwaukee his entire career, then baseball reference has their info wrong, very wrong. Or there are 2 Payton Henry’s on the bluejays and both play catcher. One who spent their entire career with Milwaukee, and one who did in fact make their MLB debut with the Marlins. Someone clear this up for me.
Never mind I did see he spent time with the Marlins in the article. I skipped that part by mistake, but he did make his MLB debut.
I dont get people in the comments…its a HBP..theres nothing you can do as a batter
Jansen is injury-prone. Has been his entire career. Also sets his hands too close to the plate as a hitter.
No one is BLAMING him, thats like blaming someone for being bald.
Well it’s been two months since he’d been injured so he was due. Always gets hit in the hand/wrist and is hurt. Maybe he needs to change something with how he bats
We’ll trade you Joey Bart for a gallon of maple syrup. OK fine, a quart.
Hate Jansen got hurt. Maybe opportunity to acquire Bart as backup
Probably should get Varsho into some catcher action.
@Joe S
Varsho is beyond bad behind the plate.
Bart can actually be a good hitter and defender, he’s just psyched out with the Giants. Total change of scenery dude.
All these discussions would be mute if the idiot GM had not traded a future all star catcher for an outfielder who can’t hit.
Varsho had his first season is a new league. Give him a chance to get to know the pitchers. He actually hit pretty well over the last 2 months of the season. He has also been tearing it up this spring. Even players like Seager and Olson had down numbers their first year in a new league before coming on strong the next season. Let’s see what he does this year, before writing him off.
Even with the down year at the plate his WAR was pretty similar to Moreno’s last season. People really underestimate the value he brings defensively. He leade all players last year with 29 DRS. If he gets back to what he did at the plate with Arizona that is a valuable player. If he hits better than that he is extremely valuable
I also think having Votto around will help him as there were no good lefthanded hitters around to mentor him last year. Mattingly taking a greater role on the offensive side of coaching should help as well (he mentioned he didn’t do much of that last year as he didn’t want to to step on any toes last season). Those are 2 of the best lefthanded hitters of all time he has to mentor him.