Article: Daulton Varsho Makes His Spring Training Debut Today: The Blue Jays Really Need Him

[Davy Andrews]

Daulton Varsho's recovery from shoulder surgery is going better than expected, and he'll suit up as the designated hitter against the Yankees this afternoon.

Later today, Daulton Varsho will get his first taste of spring training. In recent days, it has emerged that Varsho’s recovery from September surgery on his right rotator cuff is ahead of schedule. Varsho has been shagging fly balls and hitting with no restraints, and he has progressed to throwing from a distance of 120 feet. At 1:07 PM today, the Blue Jays will face the Yankees and he’ll get his first taste of game action in 2025, as the designated hitter. The team listed him as questionable for opening day over the winter, but with things going so well, Gregor Chisholm reported that “there’s growing optimism in camp that Varsho might be ready by opening day,” even if no one wants to be the person to risk saying those words out loud.

“I think, for everybody, I’m ahead of schedule,” Varsho told reporters. “I’m taking it day by day, knowing that hitting is ahead and throwing is going to be further behind. But things are going well. I’m feeling it come out a little bit more. I heard my arm whip the other day. So I was like, all right, we’re getting close.” Varsho had been throwing every other day, but he threw on consecutive days for the first time this week.

It would be hard to overstate how big a lift it would be to have a fully healthy Varsho for the whole season. He’s absolutely one of the team’s biggest make-or-break players. “It’s a big year for Varsh,” said manager John Schneider. The 28-year-old has a solid argument as the greatest defensive outfielder in the game today, and for the first time in his career, he’s expected to have sole possession of center field. Between his defense and his excellent baserunning, he doesn’t have to provide much value at the plate to be a standout. He’s only put up an above-average batting line once, in 2022, when his 106 wRC+ (just 6% better than the average hitter) allowed him to put up 4.4 fWAR. Despite putting up an almost exactly average offensive season in 2024, Varsho was still one of the Blue Jays’ best players, putting up 3.3 fWAR.

But the thing is, Varsho absolutely has the tools to put up big offensive numbers. Although his surface-level exit velocity numbers are underwhelming, Varsho possesses above-average bat speed, and his 90th percentile exit velocity, one of the best indicators of power, has consistently registered around the league average. The left-handed hitter excels at pulling the ball in the air, a recipe for making the most of his contact, and it has allowed him to hit at least 18 home runs in each of his three full major league seasons. That steep swing also results in a lot of swing-and-miss and mishits, the real reason that his exit velocity numbers are lacking. According to Sports Info Solution, his 22% soft contact rate was the second-highest among all qualified players in 2024, while Statcast rated his 24% squared-up rate as the absolute worst. Still, that approach might make Varsho just the kind of player who could benefit the most from the tutelage of new hitting coach David Popkins, who arrived from a Minnesota organization that has for years specialized in pulling the ball in the air.

Because of the surgery, Varsho didn’t have the chance to spend the full offseason working on his swing, but he’s still at an age when most players are just hitting their offensive primes. Despite his contact issues, he ran chase and walk rates in 2024, so it’s not as if he’s incapable of making good swing decisions. There’s a more complete hitter in there waiting to be unlocked if Varsho can find a way to modulate his sell-out-for-pull-and-loft approach in order to make more, better contact. Even if he doesn’t, another league-average season at the plate would make him to continue performing as a solid three-win player. With Bo Bichette and Vladimir Guerrero Jr. e ntering the walk years, and after the Blue Jays signed free agents Max Scherzer, Anthony Santander, and Jeff Hoffman and traded for Andrés Giménez, there’s serious urgency to compete in a stacked American League East. Getting a whole season of Varsho would go a long way toward that goal.

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[Orgfiller]

Varsho saw his backups in CF are Myles Straw, Steward Berroa, Jonatan Clase and Joey Loperfido and activated his super regeneration to make it back in time for Opening Day.

[Laika]

I can't believe Joey Loperfisher broke his c3 vertebrae crashing into the wall in his first start of spring training with his new team with a clear path to being the temporary CF starter 

shame 

[Mike LeSage]

First AB homer today! He's so back!

[Spanky99]

22 hours ago, Laika said:

I can't believe Joey Loperfisher broke his c3 vertebrae crashing into the wall in his first start of spring training with his new team with a clear path to being the temporary CF starter 

shame 

Wow, that is a shame.

[Terry Mesmer]

On 2/28/2025 at 11:47 AM, Laika said:

I can't believe Joey Loperfisher broke his c3 vertebrae

He did not.

[Terry Mesmer]

4 hours ago, Spanky99 said:

Wow, that is a shame.

Loperfido did not break his neck. He played Friday night and is playing Saturday afternoon.

[Laika]

mmmm that's not really proof

he's a tough kid trying to make the team