One of these days, Ryan Jeffers is going to put it all together and have a monster season on both sides of the ball. Jeffers' defensive metrics over the past two seasons have not been up to the standard he set in his first two full seasons.
Conversely, he's been a much better hitter overall for the past two seasons than he was when his defense ranked better.
Being a catcher in Major League Baseball is hard; there's no tougher job in the sport. But Jeffers doesn't turn 28 until June, and there's no reason to think he can't find more consistency in the entirety of his game.
At the plate in '24, Jeffers batted .226/.300/.432 with 21 home runs for a 107 wRC+, meaning he produced about 7% better than league averge among all players, regardless of position. Only four catchers hit more home runs, and only two among catchers with 350 plate appearances had higher isolated power than Jeffers.
But even within these effective numbers, particularly for catcher, Jeffers was wildly inconsistent.
Jeffers came out of the gate charging, batting .296/.391/.557 with five home runs in March/April. Jeffers sizzled so much that manager Rocco Baldelli often put him at the top of the order. Jeffers continued to hit for power in May, but his strikeout rate started to get out of control. He slumped for 2 1/2 months, slashed .278/.333/.593 in August, and couldh't buy a hit (or even rent one) in September.
Nobody is going to hit like a hot Ryan Jeffers for every month, but he's really not helping if he's slumping at the top of the order. Those kind players are supposed to be better at limiting their slumps.
Meanwhile, his defense was no easier to predict. A strong pitch framer in 2021-22, Jeffers' results dropped over the past two seasons, slipping all the way from percentiles in the 70s to fourth in 2025. That means that, going by Statcast, 96 percent of the catchers in the league were better framers than Jeffers.
Although, if you look at the Fielding Bible results at Stats Info Solutions, Jeffers wasn't that low, equal to Will Smith, Joey Bart and Yainer Diaz, and better than six additional starting catchers.
Not that every aspect of Jeffers defense was lacking statistically. Jeffers ranked neutral on stolen bases at Fielding Bible, and was in roughly the top quarter at Statcast in pop time and caught stealings above average. Jeffers excels at certain parts of the defensive game, and used to be a lot better at others.
The only noticeable pattern seems to be that it's hard to do all of it well.
The Twins, all things considered, are lucky to have Ryan Jeffers. He's not going to bring the consistent defense of someone like Christian Vázquez, but he has shown the ability in the past to be an effective defensive player.
If he gets better results behind the plate in 2025 and can keep the offensive mood swings under control, he's an All-Star.