TORONTO — The post-Russell Martin era began last fall, when one of the holdover heroes from back-to-back playoff appearances quietly took a back seat to Danny Janssen and Reese McGuire and settled for playing Fortnite instead of getting four a night – four, as in four at-bats.
And while it’s too early to say this is the era of anything for the Toronto Blue Jays, and will likely be that way until Vladimir Guerrero Jr. is here and producing, the tools of ignorance – that’s what Hall of Famer Bill Dickey referred to as catcher’s equipment – have been inherited by Jansen.
Analytics and wrist bands and real-time data availability have changed the dynamics of the catcher-pitcher and catcher-manager relationship to the point where the catcher is no longer necessarily the manager’s eyes and ears on the field or the extension of his brain, but in a sport where the defence has possession of the ball to start, it is on the catcher to help execute the act that initiates play. It’s still damn important defensively, in other words, and we’ll say this for Jansen’s effort in Thursday’s home opener loss to the Detroit Tigers: he was unnoticeable behind the plate except for throwing out Niko Goodrum’s attempted stolen base in the second inning.
Which is good. Very good. It helped that his starting pitcher, Marcus Stroman, whipped through his full repertoire including a curveball that he’s re-incorporating along with a four-seamer that is back in fashion as an antidote to all this infatuation hitters have with launch angle. It helped that Blue Jays relievers Joe Biagini and Ken Giles both struck out the side in their single innings of relief work until Daniel Hudson came on for the 10th and gave up a two-run home run. Hudson joined the Blue Jays late in spring; the two have never worked together.
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“Tough situation,” said John Schneider, the former Double-A New Hampshire manager who is part of manager Charlie Montoyo’s staff, focused on the team’s catchers. “A 0-0 game, the first time he’s caught the guy in a game situation? Yeah, that’s tough. But you can learn from it, and he will.” Jansen shrugged. “We talked briefly this morning,” he said. “It was really the only time we could.”
Jansen’s story is well-known: he rocketed through the Blue Jays organization after becoming a more proficient hitter upon deciding to wear eye-glasses. Naming him the starting catcher was one of the first decisions Montoyo made this spring, a conclusion reached at the end of the first week of March. That gave him the proper mental framework to focus on starting pitchers such as Matt Shoemaker and Clayton Richard as well as the miscellaneous collection of relief arms brought into camp. In between, he of course needed to find time to work on his hitting.
There’s a ton going on in developing – and in some cases re-developing going on – with this club, and it’s going to be hard for Jansen to skate by. Buck Martinez is the Blue Jays’ TV voice. He is a catcher. Joe Siddall is on Blue Jays Central. He was a good defensive catcher. By extension, this means Jansen will get talked about a lot unless he doesn’t give them much to talk about – which is where Schneider comes in. The Blue Jays have done what amounts to a quick rebuild of the Jansen who finished last season: he’s setting up more narrowly behind the plate and the target he’s giving his pitchers is different.
“It’s not as inverted, with his thumb totally down, which actually helps him be stronger getting the ball into his hands,” said Schneider.
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Setting up more narrowly puts him in a better position to throw. It also gives the umpires a cleaner target, the type of attention to defensive detail that will save strikes and pitches and, possibly, set the tone for a cleaner game. That’s part of the culture change of which this organization speaks, after consecutive seasons of back-sliding defensively – a change that couldn’t be enacted with a veteran like Martin behind the plate. That’s not a knock. Rather … well, how’d you like to tell Martin that after a decade of being beaten up he needs to do stuff differently? That he needs to (ahem) ‘clean it up.’
Jansen understands he is still a work in progress and that he needs to do so while competing at the major-league level. In that end, Thursday was all to the good as a tone-setter and if you don’t think that matters, think back to J.P. Arencibia’s three passed balls in 2013 when he was charged with the responsibility of mastering R.A. Dickey’s knuckleball. That was the season in a nutshell. Thursday, at least, Montoyo could look at his team’s loss and take solace in the fact that “it was a well-played game, with good pitching and defence.”
Jansen deserves credit for that and he should feel free to take it. After all, Angel Hernandez was the first base umpire and he’ll have the plate later in this series. It doesn’t get any easier, kiddo.
Jansen said the changes that he and Schneider have incorporated have freed him up athletically. Today, he will come in and “look at some stuff” from the opener, which he said was “all in all a good day. A pitcher’s duel the whole game. We can build off it and revise some things.”
And when he goes back out behind the plate, Schneider and him will continue with their still-developing routine. “I’m checking in with him constantly,” said Schneider. “Between innings. Just checking in and making sure he’s good. He has a lot on his plate so it’s more like offering suggestions and making sure we’re all on the same page.
“It’s about adjustments,” Schneider said. “And tonight (Thursday’s game) is gonna have plenty of examples.”
That’s not a negative, understand. It’s how development and refinement happens when it happens the way it should: quietly, so quiet we don’t notice it.
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