Breaking down the debuts of Blue Jays' Sean Reid-Foley and Danny Jansen
On Monday the Toronto Blue Jays gave their fans the greatest incentive to tune in they’ve had in weeks.
Although a matchup against the lowly Kansas City Royals generally wouldn’t be must-see, it approached that territory thanks to the dual debut of catcher Danny Jansen and starter Sean Reid-Foley. While Vladimir Guerrero Jr. is the prospect many Blue Jays fans are dying to see, the pair both have potential to be major contributors at the major-league level.
Jansen is considered the “catcher of the future” for the club, while Reid-Foley might be the best power arm in the system — especially with Nate Pearson in the midst of a season lost to injury.
How did the brand-new battery fare in their first taste of the bigs? Here’s a closer look.
Sean Reid-Foley
The statline: 5 IP, 6 H, 3 ER, 3 BB 3 K on 97 pitches
In terms of results Reid-Foley’s day wasn’t fantastic, but it was certainly solid for a debut. The right-hander fell one inning short of a quality start, and demonstrated some of his expected strengths and weaknesses.
On the plus side, he had plus velocity, changed speeds and used all four of his pitches. He limited the damage when men got on base, and didn’t appear out of his depth. On the other hand, he undoubtedly struggled with his command at times and was relatively inefficient with his pitches. It’s also worth remembering that the Royals possess a dreadful lineup and if he’d performed similarly against a more formidable group things might have gone very differently.
The pitch mix: Four-seam Fastball (58.7 percent), Slider (20.6 percent), Curveball (13.4 percent), Changeup (7.2 percent)
Reid-Foley’s bread-and-butter is always going to be his big fastball, and he flashed it Monday averaging 93.9 mph and peaking at 95.9 mph. Although he didn’t get any strikeouts off the pitch he managed seven swinging strikes and showed an inclination to climb the ladder with it.
Arguably, his prettiest fastball of the night came on a pitch where he missed his spot low, but found a perfect location up-and-away to Adalberto Mondesi. It’s the type of thing we’ll probably see a fair amount from Reid-Foley for a while as his command remains a work-in-progress. Luckily for the Blue Jays, he’s got the stuff to compensate.
Even though his fastball command was spotty at times, by and large the Royals didn’t hit it hard. Their average exit velocity on the pitch was a tepid 83.3 mph and the only guy to really get a hold of one was Ryan O’Hearn on his two-run homer.
Reid-Foley’s most-used secondary pitch was his slider, which he went to 20 times. The offering was a bit of a non-factor in the start as he only got one whiff on it and the location was off at times.
That said, the one whiff he did get on the pitch flashed what it could be as Reid-Foley put away Alex Gordon with an absolutely nasty back-foot slider:
If he’s able to snap off a few more that look like that in his next outings, the 22-year-old could find himself racking up the Ks.
Reid-Foley’s other breaking ball is the curveball which he used relatively sparingly, but was able to keep down.
He got a couple of whiffs on the pitch, but also lost the handle on it for a wild pitch in the fifth. One of the things that makes Reid-Foley an interesting prospect is that either of his breaking balls can be his go-to in a given start, and it will be interesting to see if he’s more curveball-heavy going forward.
Finally he used his changeup just seven times, but got a couple of whiffs with it and generally commanded it well.
Right now, it’s very much his fourth pitch, but for a pitcher with his big fastball it does have the potential to be a weapon someday — especially since the velocity gap between it and the heater is right around the sweet spot of 10 mph.
Danny Jansen
The statline: 2-for-3 with two singles and one flyout. 1-for-1 catching attempted basestealers.
It’s difficult to fully account for what a catcher accomplishes on any given day because of some of their subtler responsibilities, but it’s hard to describe what Jansen did as anything but a success.
At the plate, he laid off every pitch outside the strike zone and hit a couple of singles on good pitches to hit down in the zone.
Unfortunately for Jansen, in his first major-league at-bat, the only thing that robbed him of an RBI was the legs of Russell Martin who was gunned out at the dish trying to score from second.
Behind the plate, it’s tricky to determine with confidence how successful Jansen was. However, the fact he presided over a respectable major-league debut and guided the uninspiring Luis Santos and rookie southpaw Thomas Pannone through three scoreless innings of relief suggests he didn’t botch his game calling or framing duties.
He did allow a wild pitch, but he also gunned out the only runner who attempted to steal off him — albeit on a bit of an odd delayed steal attempt from Rosell Hererra:
It was a play Jansen had time to make, but he wasn’t caught napping and the throw was both strong and accurate. It’s hard to ask for much more.
Although neither Reid-Foley nor Jansen had a stunning debut, both showed why precisely they could be very important pieces for the Blue Jays. Considering how badly this team needs building blocks — and a little excitement — bringing the pair up already looks like a pretty good move.
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