You never forget your first. 24 saves away from becoming the third man to 500, Kenley Jansen can still see No. 1 like it was yesterday: "It was a one-run game, Kersh was pitching, he went 8 and then I came in." Jansen, a 22-year-old rookie, set the Mets down in order, "Carlos Beltran, Jason Bay and Ike Davis, I want to say."
The names serve as a reminder of how long Jansen's been doing it, mowing down hitters with a "God-given" cutter that he grips like a four-seam fastball and hurls from the heights of his 6'5 frame. It started to cut on its own, like Mariano Rivera's once did, and never stopped. "And here I am," Jansen said, "17th spring training coming in."
When Rivera retired after 2013, he passed the mantle to Jansen as the best closer in baseball. Jansen held it for several years during a dominant run with the Dodgers. He's MLB's active leader in saves, and fourth all-time behind three Hall of Famers in Rivera, Trevor Hoffman and Lee Smith. Jansen, who will pass Smith this season, is likely headed to Cooperstown himself.
First, he's making a stop in Detroit. The Tigers have eyed Jansen for a couple years. They pursued him last winter in free agency and tried trading for him last winter at the deadline. They didn't miss this time around, signing Jansen to a one-year, $11 million deal to fortify the back of their bullpen after a season in which he held hitters to an average of .173 and posted a 2.59 ERA at age 37. His only regret is that they didn't unite sooner.
Asked what appealed to him about the Tigers, Jansen said that "watching the last couple years, I should've signed and played the 2025 season with them, but I chose the Angels for so many reasons. The familiarity of Los Angeles was one of them, but Jansen is most familiar with winning. While the Angels missed the playoffs for the 10th straight season, the Tigers reached the ALDS for the second year in a row. Jansen could have helped.
"They were always a team that was interested and watching them play last year, how far they got, I think they have a very special team here. And now they added more guys, like me and Framber and J.V.’s back here wearing the Tigers uniform, I think it’s going to be great," Jansen said. "It’s going to be a fun ballclub and I think the fans are going to enjoy that, and hopefully we can bring them farther this time."
It's not just the rotation that looks like a strength for Detroit. The bullpen trio of Jansen, Will Vest and Kyle Finnegan makes the Tigers the first team in MLB history to have three pitchers who had at least 20 saves the prior season. In any order that A.J. Hinch chooses -- and he'll surely choose them all -- that's a pretty lethal combination in the seventh, eighth and ninth. How's that sound to Jansen?
"I think it sounds really good for the Tigers," he said with a smile. "And that’s what we’re here for. It’s not going to take one guy to win it all, plus more, but I think it’s going to be for us to set the tone and everybody goes around us. We just gotta set the foundation and stabilize that bullpen, and it’s gonna be great for the Tigers."