Profiles in Courage: Kenley Jansen

AJ Ellis asking for catching tips from Kenley Jansen.

Between injuries, poor performance, bad roster management, and incompetent/sadistic ownership, pretty much everything that could go wrong has gone wrong this season.  It’s easy to become disillusioned with the team, and assume that other than the mighty duo of Matt Kemp and Clayton Kershaw, there’s nothing else associated with the Dodgers worth caring about. 

We here at Proven Veteran Leaders want to change that.  There are some bright spots on this team that most people, understandably, are not really noticing.  So we’d like to take a moment and focus on those bright spots.  Today, that means we’re going to talk about Kenley Jansen. 

The main reason he’s probably overlooked is because of his poor start to the season, which skewed his overall ERA (4.26). That number is usually thought of as enough to keep someone in the bigs, but not get anybody excited about his performance.  His strikeout numbers are nice, as we mentioned in a previous post, but it would seem the overall performance hasn’t been anything special.

  

Let’s take a closer look at Jansen’s season.  His first eight appearances were uneven, mostly due to two games where he gave up four and five runs.  Between April 2^nd and April 19^th he had an 11.42 ERA, batters had a  1.012 OPS against him, he gave up 3 homeruns and walked 6 batters in just 8 and 2/3 innings.  The strikeout numbers were still there, as he struck out 13, but everything else seemed to be going wrong. 

Since then, he has pitched in 21 games, throwing 23 total innings.  His ERA in that time has been 1.57, batters have a .418 OPS against him, he’s given up 0 homeruns and walked  14.  On top of that, the strikeouts have remained, with 38.  These numbers are simply outstanding.  They can’t help but remind us of Jonathan Broxton at his most dominant.  You know, before he got hurt, or had his balls removed (for those who insist Broxton “just doesn’t know how to win”).  His K/9 rate right now is a staggering 14.49, which makes him third in all of baseball, and first among anyone with 10 or more games. 

The scariest/best thing about Jansen?  The fact that he’s only 23 (24 in September) and has only been pitching for about two years.  We might just be seeing the tip of the iceberg here.  With Broxton sure to be gone next year, and probably no little to no payroll available to sign some big name elite reliever, Jansen looks more and more like the best bet to be the closer of the future for the Dodgers.  If he can continue this level of dominance, he could be starring for the Blue for a long time.