page_title: Kenley Jansen
section_title: Minor leagues
hierarchical_section_title: Kenley Jansen / Baseball career / Minor leagues
caption_attribution_description: Kenley Jansen
context_page_description: Kenley Geronimo Jansen is a Curaçaoan professional baseball pitcher for the Los Angeles Dodgers of Major League Baseball. He converted from a catcher to a relief pitcher in the minor leagues, and made his major league debut in 2010. Jansen has served as the Dodgers' closer since 2012, and led the National League in saves in 2017. He is a three-time MLB All-Star and two-time NL Reliever of the Year. In 2019, Jansen became the 30th pitcher to reach 300 career saves.
context_section_description: Jansen was signed as an undrafted free agent catcher by the Dodgers organization on November 17, 2004, and was assigned to the Rookie Class Gulf Coast Dodgers, where he played in 37 games and hit .304 before being promoted to the Ogden Raptors of the Pioneer League on August 26. He had two hits in 11 at-bats in three games for Ogden. He was back with the Gulf Coast team the following season, hitting .245 in 35 games. After the season he played for the North Shore Honu in the Hawaii Winter Baseball League, where he hit .121 in nine games.
  Jansen split 2007 between the Raptors and the Class-A Great Lakes Loons of the Midwest League, hitting .207 in 73 games. After the season, he again played in Hawaii Winter Baseball, this time for the West Oahu CaneFires In 2008 with the Loons, he hit .227 and 9 home runs in 79 games. He was selected to the mid-season Midwest League All-Star game.
  In 2009, he was the starting catcher for the Netherlands team in the World Baseball Classic. In the Netherlands' upset of the favored Dominican Republic team, Jansen threw out Willy Taveras on an attempted steal of third base in the ninth inning, a key play in the game. He began 2009 with the Inland Empire 66ers of San Bernardino, but hit just .202 in 38 games. Despite that, he appeared in eight games for the Triple-A Albuquerque Isotopes, but had just five hits in 27 at-bats.
  The Dodgers convinced Jansen that he had no future at catcher because of his poor offensive numbers and that he should switch to pitching. Under the tutelage of former major leaguer Charlie Hough, he made the conversion in the second half of the 2009 season at Inland Empire. He pitched 11 ​²⁄₃ innings for the 66ers, allowing six earned runs. He continued the conversion in the Arizona Fall League for the Peoria Javelinas.
  Jansen was added to the Dodgers 40-man roster on November 19, 2009. He started with Inland Empire again and allowed only five runs in 18 innings while striking out 28 batters. On May 15, 2010, he was promoted to the Double-A Chattanooga Lookouts, where he was selected to the mid-season Southern League All-Star Game. He pitched 27 innings in 22 games for the Lookouts, with a 1.67 ERA.
caption: Jansen batting for the Great Lakes Loons in 2008
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