'Turning point in my career': Despite quick playoff ouster, Danny Jansen reflects on best season of MLB career

TORONTO – In a perfect world, Appleton West graduate Danny Jansen would have had two of the most special memories of his life coincide right around Halloween this year.

On the professional side, he was hoping to get to the World Series as a key contributor on a young and talent-laden Toronto Blue Jays squad that entered the postseason as one of the hottest in Major League Baseball.

Off the field, his wife Alexis is due to give birth to the couple’s first child in late October.

Now, after Jansen was behind the plate Saturday for the largest lead ever squandered by a home team in playoff history, resulting in a two-game wild-card series sweep by the Seattle Mariners, he’ll have to focus on the joy of impending fatherhood to help him avoid dwelling on not just a loss, but a devastating defeat.

“It’s so exciting, I can’t wait until I become a father,” said Jansen from his locker room stall at Toronto’s Rogers Centre, as he allowed himself to briefly switch from crestfallen Blue Jay in a somber clubhouse, to an excited dad-to-be, flashing a big ear-to-ear smile.

And although the end of the season may have ended in nightmarish fashion for his team — a lead of 8-1 heading into the top of the sixth inning squandered in a 10-9 loss — Jansen also knows he can smile about the fact that there is a long list of positives to take away from 2022.

It was by far the best campaign of his five as a big-leaguer, despite the fact he missed more than half the season from two injuries, a left oblique strain in April that took more than a month to heal, followed by a finger that got hit by a 96 mph pitch in June, taking him out of action not long after he had finally returned from the first setback.

For the 72 games Jansen did play, he had a batting average of .260, nearly 40 points above his career average, to go along with career bests in home runs (15), runs batted in (44) and OPS (.855). Most impressive was how he finished the season. In his last 30 games, he hit .330, including five home runs, and had a slugging percentage of .602.

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And even in that crushing playoff loss to end the season, Jansen was one of the Jays’ top performers, going 3-for-5. He had two singles, a double and scored two runs. He became only the second Blue Jays catcher in franchise history to have three hits in a playoff game.

In the four playoff games he has appeared in (two against Seattle this season and two versus Tampa Bay in 2020), he is 5-for-13 (.385) with two homers, a double, four RBI and a 1.308 OPS.

Add it all up, and the 27-year-old said he thinks 20 years from now, when he looks back over the entirety of what he hopes will be a long tenure in the majors, he’ll say 2022 was the season when everything finally came together and he began to see how he could reach his potential.

“I think it was a breakout year for myself,” said Jansen, who was drafted by the Blue Jays in the 16th round of the 2013 draft. “I have gotten more and more confident as the year has gone on. It’s definitely a turning point in my career and I’m looking to just keep building on that.”

When asked to explain why things improved so much, Jansen did not hesitate to point toward a much more mature patience he takes into each plate appearance.

“I have learned so much this year about the approach I need to have and what I want to do when I step in the box. I now know what I want to look for every time," he said. "That has helped me so much. In this game, you want to continuously learn. And once you stop learning it will kick you out, so I think that for me personally I’ve gotten into the trap of perhaps thinking the wrong things while at the plate instead of just worrying about what I want to do with an approach. So, I feel like I’ve really evolved in that role. It has really paid off.”

The 6-foot-2, 215-pound right-hander added that proving he can bounce back from two frustrating injuries was another key factor in his development.

“I had those two injuries this year,” he said. “They really stunk. They put me on the shelf for a couple of months. But I was proud of the way I was able to come back and continue to make quality at-bats and pass the baton along to the next guy. So, I’m really proud of myself for this whole year.”

Another great memory Jansen said he will treasure from this year is the experience of playing in home playoff games for the first time, despite the losses. The atmosphere in Toronto — with the team’s sold-out domed stadium jammed with nearly 50,000 raucous fans — is widely regarded as one of, if not the most boisterous, settings the sport can offer.

“It was everything we heard it would be,” said Jansen, who made his major league debut in August 2018 after being called up from the Jays’ Triple-A team in Buffalo. “None of us on this team had experienced a playoff game here before. We were only able to go off what we had heard playoff games are like here. Now we know. It was totally awesome. It was totally electric.”

Meanwhile, far away from the stadium, Jansen said he was pleased to know so many people back home in Wisconsin had been following the Blue Jays closely over the last few weeks and had been reaching out to him to offer support. That includes his parents, Kathy and Steve, his older brother Matthew, a number of close friends and his old coach and mentor from Appleton West, Dave Gassner.

“It’s always great to hear from him. He will often text me during the season, especially after a home run. He was wishing me good luck in the postseason. That was nice,” Jansen said.

With the Jays out of the playoffs, all he can do is look ahead to next season. He’ll have Toronto manager John Schneider, who took over the team midseason after Charlie Montoyo was fired, for a full season and Jansen thinks that should help keep the momentum going in the right direction.

Schneider and Jansen have a particularly close relationship. They came to the Blue Jays at the same time — Schneider as a 32-year-old managerial prospect and Jansen as a wide-eyed 17-year-old just drafted. Together, they have moved up from the bottom of the Blue Jays organization to rise to the top.

But there will certainly be no special treatment for Jansen because of that. Toronto has 23-year-old Alejandro Kirk at catcher as well. Kirk is a special talent who was selected to play in the all-star game this year. Plus, there’s 22-year-old Gabriel Moreno, yet another catching prodigy on the Jays roster. It means Jansen is only catching part time in Toronto, though the days he is not catching he is still getting into the game as a designated hitter. If that pattern continues next year, that’s just fine with him.

“What the Blue Jays have with their catchers is definitely unique in the league, but whether I’m in there or not I’m always ready for my name to be called," he said. "When you get an opportunity, you just put your head down and play hard. Obviously, there are two other talented players and they can really play. But it’s been fun playing with them and competing with them. And the fact I’m in there DHing is great as well. So, whether I’m in there or not, I’m always ready to go.”

This article originally appeared on Appleton Post-Crescent: Blue Jays catcher Danny Jansen "proud of myself" after best MLB season