FORT MYERS, Fla. — One afternoon last summer, while preparing for a game with the Atlanta Braves, Kenley Jansen stared at a clubhouse television, riveted but chagrined. An MLB Network graphic displayed the slowest-working pitchers in baseball. Jansen saw his name at the top of the list.
“I was so embarrassed,” Jansen said. “Like, dude, you’ve got to clean it up.”
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He was also confused.
“It drives me crazy,” Jansen said. “Because I’m like, when did I get this slow?”
Several months later, after Major League Baseball announced the official implementation of the 30-second pitch clock, Jansen stood in the sunshine at JetBlue Park, chatting with Justin Turner, his former Dodgers teammate and a fellow new member of the Boston Red Sox, reminiscing about how his pace grew so sluggish. Jansen thought back to a moment in 2021, his final season with the Dodgers, while he was searching to recapture the form that had once made him a three-time All-Star closer.
Jansen had begun swiveling his front left hip to start his delivery. Travis Smith, one of the team’s strength and conditioning coaches, made a suggestion: Do it twice. Jansen tried the second swivel during a game that April against the Washington Nationals. His third pitch of the game registered at 95 mph — a speed he had only touched three times the previous year. Another act to his career had begun.
The double swivel kept Jansen balanced on the rubber. No longer did he drift toward third base, losing velocity and command. Instead, he explained, “I was more like a tree falling to the ground. Straight home.” The maneuver elongated his delivery. But the results were undeniable. He posted a 2.22 ERA in 2021, his lowest mark since 2017. A year later, with Atlanta, he led the National League with 41 saves. Swayed by his résumé and his capacity for reinvention, Boston signed Jansen, 35, to a two-year, $32 million deal this winter.
The Red Sox believed they were acquiring a talented reliever. But they understood they were not getting one who worked particularly fast. With runners on base, no pitcher in the sport operated at a slower pace than Jansen last year, according to BaseballSavant, with 31.4 seconds between pitches. With the bases empty, Jansen moved quicker, but his 25.6-second tempo was still the third-slowest in baseball.
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The arrival of the pitch clock will place Jansen under scrutiny. So will more strict enforcement of the rules governing balks and illegal pitches. A variety of pitchers, like Toronto starter Kevin Gausman and Astros starter Luis Garcia, might need to make changes. Jansen and Turner were grappling with the implications of the new edicts. Jansen would have to ditch his double-swivel.
“It’s a balk now,” Turner said. “It’s ‘deceiving the runners.’”
Jansen lamented the initial lack of clarity on the rules. MLB intended to use spring training to work out the kinks. Jansen knew he had to adjust.
“How are you going to come set now?” Turner asked.
“I’m going to be more on my toes,” Jansen said. “I’ll do it one time.”
He stood tall and executed a single swivel. He had practiced this more simplified approach during the offseason. When he played catch, he kept a timer on himself. As the Red Sox opened camp, Jansen pushed himself to pitch faster.
“He worked diligently with the clock today, probably much faster than he had to, on purpose,” pitching coach Dave Bush said after a workout earlier this week.
At this point in the spring, Bush continued, there was time to build new habits. Pitchers like Jansen were learning how quickly they could operate and then re-wiring their internal clock to match the external one.
“Just making sure they have enough reps and the clock ends up being a non-issue and part of what they’re doing out there, rather than something mechanical,” Bush said.
Jansen has always worked slowly. Even in 2017 — a remarkable season in which he finished with 41 saves, a 1.32 ERA and a preposterous 15.57 strikeout-to-walk ratio — Jansen was the eighth-slowest in the game with the bases empty and 11th slowest with men on base. There were two reasons no one really noticed. Jansen was slow, but his innings were quick: From his debut in 2011 to 2018, he permitted fewer than a baserunner per inning, with a 0.888 WHIP.
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The other reason? He played with Pedro Baez, a middle reliever who often ground games to a halt.
“I’m trying to understand when I became this slow,” Jansen said. “Because you guys were talking about Petey Baez all the time. And now, I’m the slowest guy.”
Even at his peak, Jansen understood his pace clashed with commissioner Rob Manfred’s vision for a streamlined product. In 2018, Jansen called the potential usage of a pitch clock “ridiculous.” He suggested fining the teams whose games took the longest. That, he felt, would spur organizations to emphasize expeditiousness among its pitchers.
His stance has softened over the years. He said he was “fine with” the pitch clock.
“If you ask me honestly, I think it should never be there,” Jansen said. “But it’s a game of adjustments. I’m not going to complain about it. If you ask me personally, ‘if you were commissioner, what would you do?’ I think we’re going a little bit too far from the game. But I get it. Maybe 162 games, you get sick and tired of it, when games are three or four hours — that’s not helping, either.”
As he enters his 14th big-league season, Jansen considers himself a better all-around pitcher than he was during his peak in the 2010s, when Jansen set the standard for relievers along with Aroldis Chapman and Craig Kimbrel. He believes his willingness to adapt has kept him relevant. After a bittersweet championship in 2020, Jansen embraced therapy, meditation and mindfulness.
“I’m a better player,” he said. “I’m a better human being. I learned a lot.”
He changed his delivery to retain his status as one of baseball’s better closers. Now that the rules have changed, Jansen will change with them.
(Top photo: Billie Weiss / Boston Red Sox / Getty Images)
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