Carter Jensen is playing like a rookie catcher

One of the reasons I felt good about the Kansas City Royals coming into the season was that I was extremely impressed by what we saw from Carter Jensen in September of last year. Jensen came up to the majors and immediately looked like one of the best hitters on the team, sporting a .300/.390/.550 slash line, good for a wRC+ of 159. It wasn’t just the results, but how he achieved them. The left-handed hitter drew nine walks compared to 12 strikeouts and flashed a sweet swing at the plate with some outstanding power. I didn’t expect Jensen to be 60% above league average as a hitter again, but I assumed he would be above average at the plate and behind it as a catcher, which would make him a very valuable player even as a rookie.

Jensen has not been the most disappointing player on the Royals this season – that title can be shared with Vinnie Pasquantino, Salvador Perez, and Lucas Erceg, in my opinion. But 40% of the way through the season, he has been a replacement-level player, which falls well short of expectations.

On one hand, this is not particularly surprising. It’s hard to be a rookie in MLB and live up to the expectations that us overeager fans can put on the players. Jensen currently has an 81 wRC+, which is disappointing given what he did last year but right in line with rookie catcher averages.

It’s hard for hitters to adjust to major-league pitching in their first extended taste of the big leagues when pitchers get a chance to study their tendencies and find weaknesses to exploit. That adjustment can be extra difficult on catchers, since they are also spending a lot of time learning on the defensive side of the ball as well.

The biggest sign of pitchers adjusting to Jensen is his increased strikeout percentage. Jensen is striking out in 28.8% of his plate appearances this season after only striking out in 17.4% last season. The catcher is swinging and missing at more pitches; his swinging strike percentage has gone from 10.9% to 12.4%. He is also looking at more pitches in the zone; his called strike percentage is up from 13% in 2025 to 16.5% in 2026.

Looking over Jensen’s Baseball Savant page gives us some more clues as to what might be contributing to the increase in strikeout rate and the adjustments that the 22-year-old will hopefully make as he continues to improve and adjust to MLB pitching. Statcast labels pitches thrown in the middle zone of the plate as “Meatballs,” and these are generally pitches that you want to swing at. Last season, the catcher swung at 79.2% of meatballs, which is above the major-league average of 76.2%. This season, Jensen is only swinging at 68.4% of meatballs.

I appreciate that he is attempting to take pitches and work the count, but this looks like a hitter being a little too cautious and not aggressive enough to me. I think if Jensen can get back to the level of aggressiveness on good pitches to hit that he found last season, he will both strikeout less and start making better contact. That seems achievable and something that should get better with time. I’m not worried currently about Jensen’s future ability at the plate, but for this season we may be watching more of him trying to figure out how to make good swing decisions against the best pitchers in the world.

It’s been the defensive side of the ball for Jensen that has stood out to me most when watching the Royals this season, particularly his blocking. Among 69 qualified catchers, Jensen is second-to-last (only above Logan O’Hoppe) in blocking runs above-average with -7 catching runs. Statcast estimates that Jensen should have 11 wild pitches + passed balls based on the quality of pitches he has received, but instead the catcher has 18. The rookie has struggled in particularly with balls low and to his left, which is a pitch that needs to be blocked to help your pitchers go for strikeouts. He’s had some truly awful blocking attempts. If the Royals were competitive this season, I’d feel like a Carter Jensen passed ball would be a Chekhov’s Gun just sitting there for a clutch moment. It doesn’t look like we will need to worry about it sabotaging this season, however, as there has been plenty of sabotage to go around.

The catcher does have some positive qualities behind the dish. He’s been slightly above-average as a framer, and has been much better than Perez at framing this season. Jensen has a quick pop time is currently in the 80th percentile in Caught Stealing Above Average. His overall defense as a catcher has been around replacement level despite giving away 8 runs with his poor blocking skills, so any improvement to his ability to block pitches is going to make his defense a net positive.

Jensen is skilled and athletic enough to figure out how to move to his left and block tough pitches. I believe that anyone who can make this catch can improve on their blocking ability:

We’ve also seen Bobby Witt Jr. make remarkable strides on defense after a difficult rookie campaign, so we know it can be done. Research by Tom Hanrahan has shown that catchers get better at handling pitchers after their rookie season, which is both encouraging and a reminder that Jensen is juggling a lot by leading off and catching as much as he is.

The struggles Jensen is currently working through seem like solvable issues and somewhat normal for a rookie catcher. I’m still optimistic about his future with the Royals, but watching him so far this season has reminded me that it’s tough to make the leap from Triple-A to MLB, and that I should have factored in more growing pains when estimating how the Royals would perform this season. Jensen looks like a rookie catcher out there, and at least so far, my expectations for something more were overly optimistic.