The Rangers made a move last night when they traded for catcher Danny Jansen. He will split duties with Kyle Higashioka serving mostly as the backup for him.

This is the biggest move that the team has made this offseason giving him a two year $14.5 million deal.

Performance Last Year

Jansen posted a 2.8 WAR last season with a slash line of .215/.321/.720. He hit 14 home runs with 36 RBIs as he split time between the Tampa Bay Rays and the Milwaukee Brewers.

This numbers don’t jump off the page too much offensively and that is not where Jansen excels. Looking into his advanced stats, you can see what his bread and butter are.

His advanced stats don’t like too pretty, but there are a couple of stats that are really good compared to the league and those make him a dangerous player. On the hitting side, he doesn’t have a lot going for him as most of the stats are below league average.

The two that stand out as above league average are his chase rate and walk rate. These are good metrics that stand out as the Rangers were a team last year that struggled to make pitchers work deep into counts and would often let them off the hook by chasing at pitches.

When you look at the defensive end, you see what Jansen does the best and it is his blocking ability. He has 14 blocks above average and that means that he is preventing wild pitches and he is near the top in the league in this.

Verdict

Jansen will be a defensive focused catcher and will provide a bit on the offensive end. He will provide more than Heim and overall it is a pretty good get for the Rangers to pair with Higgy.

Higgy will still get most of the work, but Jansen will work well as a backup and take some of the strain off Higgy.