{"id":344921,"date":"2025-12-13T07:48:10","date_gmt":"2025-12-13T07:48:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/344921\/"},"modified":"2025-12-13T07:48:10","modified_gmt":"2025-12-13T07:48:10","slug":"rangers-sign-danny-jansen-mlb-trade-rumors","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/344921\/","title":{"rendered":"Rangers Sign Danny Jansen – MLB Trade Rumors"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Rangers are in agreement with free agent catcher\u00a0Danny Jansen<\/a> on a two-year, $14.5MM deal, reports Robert Murray of FanSided<\/a>. The contract includes another $1MM in bonuses for the ISE Baseball client. Texas entered the night with 35 players on their roster and will not need to make any corresponding moves to accommodate this evening\u2019s flurry of free agent activity.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s the second straight offseason in which the Rangers added a free agent catcher on a two-year contract. They signed\u00a0Kyle Higashioka<\/a> to a $13.5MM deal last winter. Jansen gets a nearly identical contract to split the playing time in 2026. Texas needed a catcher after non-tendering Jonah Heim<\/a> on the heels of a second straight down year.<\/p>\n

Jansen and Higashioka won\u2019t match up in a strict platoon. They both hit from the right side. Neither player has huge platoon splits over the course of their careers. That\u2019ll allow Skip Schumaker to divide the playing time based on comfort with each day\u2019s starting pitcher. Higashioka and Jansen are similar players overall, though the latter is the more patient hitter. That provides a slightly higher floor from an on-base perspective even if neither player is likely to hit for a high average.<\/p>\n

The 30-year-old Jansen (31 in April) was an underrated all-around catcher early in his career with the Blue Jays. He generally performed well in limited playing time but struggled to stay healthy for a full season. Jansen has avoided injuries over the past two years except for a small wrist fracture that cost him the first couple weeks of the 2024 campaign. His production on both sides of the ball dropped that year, though, leaving him to take an $8.5MM pillow contract with the Rays.<\/p>\n

Jansen\u2019s numbers rebounded to an extent in Tampa Bay. He hit .204\/.314\/.389 with 11 home runs across 259 plate appearances. It was at least a jump from a power perspective, as he connected on two more homers in that half-season than he had over 94 games in 2024. His defensive performance was mixed. Jansen is among the league\u2019s best at blocking balls in the dirt, but his pitch framing numbers have declined over the past couple years. He doesn\u2019t have great pure arm strength yet managed to throw out a solid 24% of baserunners after struggling in that regard in 2024.<\/p>\n

Tampa Bay dealt him to the Brewers at the deadline. While it was surely a nice return home for the Appleton, Wisconsin native, that wasn\u2019t an ideal landing spot a couple months before free agency. William Contreras<\/a> plays as much as any catcher. Jansen only got 16 starts and tallied 78 plate appearances with the Brew Crew. He made the most of the sporadic playing time, adding another three homers and doubles apiece. He hit .254\/.346\/.433 in that limited look. While Jansen isn\u2019t a high-end #1 option, he\u2019s overqualified for a backup role behind one of the five best catchers in the game.<\/p>\n

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It was always going to be a brief stint in Milwaukee. They made the easy call to decline a $12MM option and look for a much cheaper backup catcher. Jansen finds a better landing spot in Arlington. He benefitted from a weak free agent class. The Rangers weren\u2019t willing to spend what it\u2019d take to add J.T. Realmuto<\/a>. That left Jansen and\u00a0Victor Caratini<\/a> as the only real possibilities if they were going to sign a catcher. Everyone else in the class is a backup or organizational depth type.<\/p>\n

RosterResource<\/a> estimated the Rangers\u2019 payroll around $167MM heading into the evening. Evenly distributing Jansen\u2019s salaries would push that close to $174MM. Texas also agreed to one-year deals with\u00a0Alexis D\u00edaz<\/a> and\u00a0Tyler Alexander<\/a>. Contract terms for the two pitchers are unreported, though it\u2019s unlikely they cost more than a couple million dollars between the two of them.<\/p>\n

The Rangers opened the 2025 season with a player payroll around $218MM. They\u2019ve been clear that number is coming down, though it\u2019s not known to what extent ownership is willing to go. It appears the front office will do its heavy lifting either in the lower rungs of free agency or via trade. They could use a mid-rotation starter and still need to add multiple relievers. Upgrading at least one of first or third base would also be ideal, though that\u2019s a lot to accomplish on what appears to be a tight budget.<\/p>\n

Image courtesy of Imagn\u00a0Images.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Rangers are in agreement with free agent catcher\u00a0Danny Jansen on a two-year, $14.5MM deal, reports Robert Murray…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":344922,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[558],"tags":[64,63,33391,591,85],"class_list":{"0":"post-344921","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-mlb","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-danny-jansen","11":"tag-mlb","12":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/344921","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=344921"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/344921\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/344922"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=344921"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=344921"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=344921"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}