MLB Trade Rumors: Blue Jays Catcher Danny Jansen Linked To NL Central Team

The Toronto Blue Jays fire sale is about to begin. Plenty of expiring contracts will be on the trade block within the next two weeks. One of those, catcher Danny Jansen, will have a bit of a market for him, and according to insider Bob Nightengale of USA Today, the Chicago Cubs are a team with interest.

The Cubs have the worst catching corps in baseball so it shouldn't be surprising that they're expressing interest in the Blue Jays' Danny Jansen.https://t.co/3mZhiYYnfl
— North Side Baseball (@northsidebaseb) July 14, 2024

The Cubs, according to North Side Baseball, have "the worst catching corps in baseball," thus their interest makes a lot of sense.

The Cubbies currently rank 29th in baseball in average (.181) and OPS (.500) from their backstops. Cubs catchers are slugging .273 — also 29th.

Jansen can go through spurts of jacking the ball out of the yard, and he currently has a 100 OPS+, right on league average for a hitter, and well above average for a catcher.

The 29-year-old Jansen is injury-prone, however, and regularly spends large chunks of each season on the IL. Only once in his 7-year career has he played more than 86 games in a season. He's currently active, however, so now's as good a time as any to give him a shot.

The Cubbies are still holding out some hope of making the playoffs, sitting 3.5 games back of a Wild Card spot. There are, though, five other teams they'd have to leapfrog first.