Closing out an era: Dodgers reflect fondly on Atlanta-bound Kenley Jansen 

For many of his time managing the Dodgers, Dave Roberts not often needed to name all the way down to the bullpen earlier than the ninth inning.

If the Dodgers had the lead, he didn’t must say a factor. He knew Kenley Jansen can be getting unfastened, warming up, and getting ready to return in and shut out the sport.

“He would do it naturally,” Roberts mentioned. “I understood him, he understood me.”

Roberts added, appreciatively: “He made my job a lot simpler.”

That fixed shall be gone this season, after Jansen signed a one-year, $16-million contract with the Atlanta Braves on Friday evening — information was nonetheless sinking in across the Dodgers’ spring coaching facility a morning later.

“He has dominated for a very long time and he was all the time there, yearly,” mentioned Clayton Kershaw, a teammate of Jansen’s going again to their minor league days. “He went on the market and did what he was requested to do. We’re going to overlook him, I’m going to overlook him.”

Added catcher Austin Barnes: “It’ll be bizarre not having him, going to battle with him. However I’m comfortable for him, going to Atlanta, received a great contract and I’m positive he’ll be good over there.”

Although Jansen was coming off one in all his most efficient seasons in 2021, when he posted a 2.22 ERA and transformed 38 of 43 save alternatives, a return to the Dodgers by no means seemed to be within the playing cards.

Jansen was searching for one other profitable contract at age 34. The Dodgers have been seemingly content material with their present crop of relievers, comfy to make use of a closer-by-committee system if wanted.

“That’s a part of the hurdles, the enterprise aspect of issues,” Roberts mentioned. “The place he’s received to maximise his earnings and do what’s finest for him and his household, which he’s clearly mentioned. After which, as a corporation, we’ve received form of — timing is necessary. And in order we proceed to maneuver ahead, which we’re accountable to do, it simply didn’t line up with the timing.”

Over his 12 years with the Dodgers, Jansen turned a franchise icon. He has greater than twice as many saves (350) as some other pitcher in group historical past. His 701 appearances are greater than some other Dodgers pitcher, too.

A 3-time All-Star and two-time Nationwide League reliever of the 12 months, Jansen’s finest seasons have been from 2013-17, when he posted 5 consecutive sub-3.00 ERAs and racked up not less than 40 saves thrice.

Lately, Jansen was inconsistent. He had a 3.01 ERA in 2018, a career-worst 3.71 ERA in 2019 and a 3.33 ERA in 2020, at occasions dropping his place because the membership’s unique ninth-inning weapon.

Though he has glorious profession postseason numbers (a 2.13 ERA, 18 saves and 92 strikeouts in 57 video games), he was additionally on the heart of a number of October disappointments earlier than the group’s 2020 World Sequence title, main some factions of the fanbase to query his function and infrequently even bathe him with boos.

Roberts, nonetheless, put these latest struggles into perspective Saturday, describing Jansen as “a Dodger nice” who was central to one of the crucial profitable stretches in group historical past.

“I believe that over the previous few years, there’s been some sentiment that he wasn’t what he ought to have been, and that’s utterly false,” Roberts mentioned. “I do suppose that as a more in-depth, issues are extra magnified, which they need to be. However this man was as reliable as any within the historical past of the sport. So the numbers don’t lie. They actually don’t.”

Does Roberts suppose Dodger followers realized how good they’d it?

“Right here’s what I’ll say,” mentioned Roberts, putting a diplomatic tone. “As a fan, you root to your gamers, your group and also you’re in it with them. So I believe that when somebody has been so good, and he’s not so good as you’ve seen at occasions, I believe followers get upset by it. They usually’re entitled to voice their opinions, however I do suppose we’re gonna look again and those self same followers that booed him are going to look again in hindsight and go, ‘Man, he was a heck of a Dodger.’”

Roberts didn’t shut the door on a attainable future reunion with Jansen, noting that his deal in Atlanta is just for one 12 months.

“We’d see him once more,” Roberts mentioned. “However he’s all the time a Dodger.”