Jonah Birenbaum

Toronto

Senior Editor, Multimedia at TheScore

senior editor, multimedia, @thescore. still scratching around in the same old hole.

Featured in: Favicon

Articles

How Danny Jansen quietly became a premier offensive catcher

Jun 22, 2024 | thescore.com | Jonah Birenbaum

TORONTO – At some point in a whirlwind 2021 for the nomadic Blue Jays as they bounced from Florida to Buffalo before finally settling back in Toronto in late July, Danny Jansen also started making moves. Jansen's major-league career to that point had been a bumpy ride, a string of three-plus occasionally promising but often frustrating seasons. By the end of the pandemic-shortened 2020 campaign, Jansen owned a career .208 batting average through 181 games. His slugging percentage sat at .370.
Daulton Varsho has turned his biggest weakness into a strength

Jun 4, 2024 | thescore.com | Jonah Birenbaum

The game plan for how to get Daulton Varsho out became increasingly obvious as he stumbled through a bumpy first season with the Toronto Blue Jays in 2023: Attack him with fastballs. Elevated fastballs, ideally. Despite his above-average bat speed (71st percentile, according to Baseball Savant's new metrics), Varsho's struggles against fastballs (high fastballs, specifically) generally played an outsized role in what was undeniably the nadir of his young career.