Longtime Closer Kenley Jansen Started Out as a Catcher You Didn’t Try to Steal On

The Detroit Tigers’ Kenley Jansen is now third all-time among MLB relief pitchers in saves, but he started his career as a catcher in the Los Angeles Dodgers organization.

Jansen threw a scoreless ninth inning on Tuesday on the road against Kansas City to notch his 479th career save, moving into third place among saves leaders. Before Friday’s Tigers-Boston Red Sox game at Fenway Park, Jansen sits with 480 saves, trailing only Hall of Famers Trevor Hoffman (601) and Mariano Rivera (652).

Both Hoffman and Rivera were groomed as pitchers, but Jansen’s career was sidetracked to the mound after his bid to make it to the big leagues as a catcher.

Former 25-year MLB pitcher Charlie Hough, who spent the first half of his career throwing for Los Angeles, spoke to Dodger Insider in July 2020 of the decision to flip Jansen from a catching prospect to a pitcher.

“I thought he’d pitch in the big leagues right away,” said Hough, the man in charge of helping convert Jansen. “I saw him pitch an inning or two and thought, this kid’s going to be all right. He’s going to get to the Dodgers. But there’s no way you can predict 10 years of this stuff. You can’t predict that. Very impressive.”

Long before a 17-year career with 1,285 strikeouts in 900-plus innings of work and four All-Star Games, Jansen had his sights set on working behind home plate. During the 2009 season, after eight games catching for the Dodgers’ Triple-A Albuquerque Isotopes affiliate, Jansen would be dispatched to the organization’s High-A club, the Inland Empire 66ers, of the California League. On June 29, 2009, he played his final professional game as a non-pitcher.

What really had the Dodgers’ scouting department high on switching Jansen to pitching was his performance for Team Netherlands (Jansen is from Curacao) during the 2009 World Baseball Classic in San Juan, Puerto Rico. The organization’s executives were impressed by Jansen’s ability to throw out runners attempting to steal. Signed as an undrafted free agent in 2004, Jansen was a long shot in the Dodgers minor league chain that suddenly, after his WBC throwing exhibition, became a pitching prospect gaining attention from instructors.

In February 2023, when speaking to MLB.com, Jansen expounded on how important his time with Team Netherlands turned out to be for his career.

“It showcased myself,” said Jansen. “You get to be known out there. I had a great arm, but my hitting wasn’t that great. I could catch and block. On the defensive side, I had no problems. I think the Dodgers already were talking a year before that about making me a pitcher.”

Once he developed his bread and butter pitch, the cutter, Jansen quickly moved up the ranks in the Dodgers’ organization. In July 2010, in a 3–2 Los Angeles win over the New York Mets, Jansen worked one inning. He had arrived at The Show. The Tigers are his fifth MLB club.

A two-time National League Reliever of the Year, Jansen became the seventh pitcher in MLB history to record 400 career saves. Along with Rivera and Hoffman, two others in the top 10 all-time saves list have landed in the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum: Billy Wagner (422 saves) was inducted in 2025 and Dennis Eckersley (390) in 2004.

Passing Hall of Famer Lee Smith for third place in the saves department, as Jansen told MLB.com after closing out the Royals, is something that he worked long and hard to achieve.

“It’s awesome,” Jansen said.  “It tells me that no matter the adversity you go through in life, in your baseball career, at some point, you think you’re done, but you always have that fight in you. You just have to keep believing in yourself, even if you don’t that day. When you do that, man, it doesn’t matter what people think about you of if they think you might not have it no more. It shows you the consistency. Here I am today, still doing it on a really good level. I’m proud of myself, proud of my teammates today to grind this game out.”

The Tigers are 10–9, trailing the first-place American League Central Minnesota Twins by one game going into this weekend’s four-game series in New England. Jansen leads the club with four saves in 4.2 innings of work.