DUNEDIN, Fla. – Jordan Romano carried a lot of nervous energy into his first appearance with rookie-ball Bluefield in 2014 and it showed. He’d joined the team in Elizabethton hours earlier after a promotion from the Gulf Coast League, had barely met his new teammates, and took the mound in pants so short they barely reached past his calves. His first fastball drilled the leadoff man in the back. He then spiked a 50-foot slider that bounced off the grass so hard the ball struck Danny Jansen in the chin, leaving the backstop gasping for air.
“Shoot, I almost killed our starting catcher,” Romano remembers thinking to himself. “He probably hates me.”
After a visit from the trainer, Jansen recovered. They finished that eighth inning without allowing a run and after the game, he approached a still sheepish Romano with a question. “Hey, are you hungry, want to get a hot dog?” the now all-star closer recalls him asking. “Let’s go to Sonic.”
Romano’s stress disappeared immediately and a decade-long friendship was born in an instant.
“Buddies ever since,” Jansen says with a big grin. “First time meeting, busted up my face. It’s a funny story because look at us now.”
Yes, look at them now, and funny as the story may be, it’s also reflective of what makes Jansen such an integral part of the Toronto Blue Jays. His game-calling, blocking and power at the plate are obvious for all to see. But beneath the surface, it’s the multifaceted and selfless dedication he pours into the pitching staff that’s a real difference-maker.
Constant conversations before and after games. Consoling or challenging his pitchers as needed. Throwing his body into whatever is called for, consequences be damned. Sensing and doing what the moment demands on and off the field, his fateful first encounter with Romano is a prime example.
“My favourite part of catching is I love the relationships and that’s a huge part of the game,” says Jansen. “I don’t want this guy feeling like crap after that. I could tell right away that I liked him. He’s just a good dude. I wanted to ensure, like, I’m good, we’re good, I do have your back in games, because he’s one of our pitchers and I like building relationships, so I wanted to get to know him.”
Over some fast food following a 5-0 loss that night, he did just that, and Romano’s appreciation of Jansen has only grown since.
“Just an old-school grinder,” he says. “He’s always happy to see you. He has really good relationships with all the pitchers. And behind the dish, he’ll put his body on the line for us, blocking balls, doing whatever it takes. I know it beats him up a little bit, but we all appreciate that. When you’ve got a guy that’s back there working as hard as he possibly can, it gives you a boost on the mound, too, like, you want to work hard for that guy, as well.”
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Jansen spent the winter working hard to rehab the right middle-finger fracture suffered in September that prematurely ended his season. It was the latest knock in a career full of them dating back to his senior year of high school in 2013, when he broke the pisiform, a pea-shaped bone where the hand meets the wrist, in his catching hand.
The injury helped the Blue Jays steal him in the 16th round of the draft that year, but the knocks just kept coming, keeping him from applying all the gains he’s made over a full season:
• In 2014, he suffered an ACL sprain and meniscus tear in his left knee;
• In 2015, an opponent’s backswing broke his left hand;
• In 2016, he had surgery on the hamate bone in his left hand;
• In 2021, a pair of hamstring strains interrupted what was becoming a breakout offensive season;
• In 2022, there was a left oblique strain before fracturing the fifth metacarpal in his left hand.
The broken finger last year came after he got hit by seven pitches in a span of 15 games over 27 days in August, three of them off the hand, one off the wrist and another off the forearm. And that doesn’t even begin to account for the steady abuse any catcher takes crouching and blocking pitches. Trying as it’s been, Jansen signed up for all of it.
“I mean, maybe you’ve got to have a little screw loose,” he quips. “I just love being in control. I love proving to my teammates that I’ll be a wall. If I wear a ball off the wrist and it saves a run and fires guys up, that’s fun. I’ve taken a lot of dinks, of course. More than I’d like. But, that’s part of the job, to gut it out and to be that presence. And being a presence behind the plate, whether it’s with targets, whether it’s wearing something and not even showing it, it’s fun to me.
“There’s so much to catching,” he adds. “It’s a huge passion, being in the fight with the pitcher, playing chess games, then it gets physical. You block a ball bottom of the ninth inning, save a run, win the game, there’s nothing that fires me up more. I love every bit of it. You really have to if you’re going to take a beating like that.”
In the background this year will be Jansen’s eligibility for free agency in the fall. Justin Turner, Yusei Kikuchi, Kevin Kiermaier and Yimi Garcia are also on expiring contracts, with an even more daunting potential talent drain lurking in the fall of 2025 when Bo Bichette, Vladimir Guerrero Jr. and Romano, among others, qualify to hit the open market. Alejandro Kirk, Jansen’s equally well-regarded partner behind the plate, still has three seasons of runway remaining.
Tim Mayza is the only other player drafted by the Blue Jays in 2013 still with the club and the lefty “cannot imagine walking into a clubhouse where Jano’s not there and he’s not catching for us.”
“I try not to, honestly,” he adds. “I’ve been with him so long and he’s a really good friend of mine and not just baseball related.”
Jansen says he and the Blue Jays “have had conversations” on a potential extension and adds that he’s “not closing any doors” on further talks down the road. Still, the 28-year-old sounds like someone trying to both push the business side of the game to the fall while reconciling the possibilities in play.
“This my 12th year here. I became a man here, it’s been a huge part of my life,” he says. “But I’m also grateful and very proud of myself for getting to this point of my career, as well. I truly am focusing on taking care of my body to the fullest and being on the field as much as I can to help the team win. My focus is going to be this year and we’ll see what happens after the season. I’m an adult now and I’ve grown up here. What I’m trying to say is I’m truly grateful for spending all the time here and it’s been a huge part of my life. And I’m also grateful for the position I’m in, as well, being one year away from free agency.”
That’s a long way from rookie-ball sliders bouncing into his face, with countless of enduring relationships established since.
