Despite frustrating 2026 season, Tigers may not be done with Kenley Jansen

The Tigers made an interesting gamble this offseason by bringing in Kenley Jansen, the third of three natural closers in the 2026 bullpen. Of the three, Jansen is the most tenured, and entered the season quite close to 500 saves, so nobody was surprised when he was given the closer role outright.

Even though the three "closers" ended up all being disappointing, Jansen's actual numbers defy his perceived performance. Today, I will present the hard truth by breaking down how Jansen was surprisingly effective this season.

The original contract terms

On December 13, 2025, it was announced that Jansen would join the Tigers on a one year pact worth $9 million, and a team option worth $12 million with $2 million buyout. Considering Jansen was already of a certain age, the team option was initially seen as a way to persuade Jansen to come to Detroit over other interested parties, perhaps as a sweetener.

For much of the year, it seemed a foregone conclusion that this team option would not be exercised due to Jansen's performance before June 1st. His performance in his final 30 outings of the season blur that certainty considerably.

Much of his failure was condensed and situational

In truth, a lot of being a relief pitcher can be summed up with the common expression "What have you done for me lately?" Well, Jansen, in his final 30 appearances of the season (accounting for 28 of his 45 innings pitched) posted a 2.57 ERA with a WHIP of 1.04.

In his final 13 2/3 innings pitched, this line was far more impressive, consisting of a 1.35 ERA with a minuscule 0.53 WHIP, essentially meaning that he allowed half a runner to reach base per inning.

But, his first half of the season was certainly not pretty. A 4.56 ERA from a closer is absolutely not a dream scenario, but it was markedly inflated by 5 1/3 innings pitched in losses, and an additional two outings that resulted in blown saves. Sure, everyone's numbers are worse when they lose and blow saves, but there's usually less of a gap between a 20.25 ERA in his 5 1/3 terrible innings, and the rest of his workload, where he tossed a 0.91 ERA in all other innings pitched.

Interestingly enough, the heart of the order rarely gave Jansen a hard time at all. The nine-hole had the highest OPS of any slot in the lineup against him (.952). The six-hole probably had the most well rounded attack against him (.273/.360/.545), which is the spot Nate Lowe was up in during that infamous matchup against the Reds on April 24th, but no other spot in the lineup posted an .800 OPS against, with six lineup spots posting an OPS under .700, and as low as .255(!!) for the seven hole.

Hitters struggled to truly square him up

At the end of the day, hitters simply couldn't hit Jansen's cut fastball as well as they probably should have. Despite throwing it 83% of the time in 2026, his cutter remained an incredibly interesting pitch, sporting 6.3 inches above average in vertical break, averaging 15.5 inches of vertical run. Add in his top-of-the-line 7 foot extension off the pitching rubber, and his 91-94 mph cut fastball played up significantly, causing 24.6% swing and miss. Overall, he struck out over 28% of batters faced, his highest rate since 2022.

Speaking of his cut fastball, his actual results on this pitch are staggering. Hitters posted just a .167 batting average and .316 slugging percentage when the at-bat ended with his cutter. His expected numbers on the pitch are far higher, but still not what you'd expect. The .213 xBA and .385 xSLG are still lower than what most fans likely expect.

By season's end, Jansen's allowed contact metrics look a little less shiny than they did around the trade deadline, but in addition to his swing and miss, he was league at preventing hard hit balls (38.1%), and permitted roughly the same barrel rate from 2025, a season where he accrued over 2 bWAR. Overall, his expected batting average was .194, which demonstrates how rarely hitters actually produced ideal launch angles and exit velocities at the same time.

He benefitted from some luck

Although it is true that hitters didn't combine ideal exit velocities and launch angles all that often, there are some areas that indicate that Jansen probably wouldn't have continued at low 3 ERA pace had the season gone on. The first being that his xERA was .40 higher than his actual total, suggesting that some defense may have contributed to his numbers ending up looking reasonably solid by the end of the season.

Jansen's xSLG was also .58 more than his actual total, suggesting that 5-6 more balls in play likely should have been extra base hits. Considering Jansen's ridiculously high walk rate, if these opportunistic outs had been turned into doubles or home runs, they likely would've led to many additional runs. Finally, any reliever that posts a walk rate of 12.8% is going to have inflated expected numbers because walks score pretty frequently.

Scott Harris, please don't overestimate Jansen's finish

All of this suggests that Jansen was a dependable arm in comparison to what fans felt he was on the field, and the rest of our leverage relievers. This does not mean that Jansen should be a Tiger in 2027.

Reviewing these numbers suggests that perhaps fanbases too quickly form narratives about relief pitchers when they have a period of struggle, but even so, he doesn't reflect the type of pitching Tigers fans hope the bullpen consists of in future seasons. Let's hope that Harris and company move on and attempt to fill his innings elsewhere.

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