In Jesús Sánchez, Blue Jays Get Low-Risk, High-Reward Bat

[Matthew Creally]

After the disappointing news that Anthony Santander would be sidelined for five to six months following surgery on his left shoulder, Blue Jays GM Ross Atkins quieted the masses by declaring the team was "not significantly involved" in the market for additions to the outfield. The surplus of corner outfielders on the big league roster would finally be free to sort itself out with spring training games getting underway soon.

So much for that.

On Friday morning, the Jays double-backed on their unsuspecting fanbase by trading for Jesús Sánchez. Joey Loperfido is going back to Houston in return, rejoining the team that drafted him five years ago. The Yusei Kikuchi trade tree has grown another branch.

The Blue Jays swapped one outfielder for another in this one. For those unfamiliar, Sánchez is a big lefty-hitting right fielder by trade who is coming off a down year but has been a quality bat at this level before; he debuted in 2020 and is under team control for this year and next. He has a prodigiously thunderous bat – here's a home run of his from a couple years ago that threatened to leave the cavernous Marlins Park, and who could forget this demolition in 2022 – yet he has never hit more than 18 homers or 25 doubles in a season, and is decidedly a power-over-plate-skills type of hitter.

Sánchez's best years to this point were 2023 and 2024 with Miami. He finished with a wRC+ of 108 and 101, and fWAR totals of 1.4 and 1.6, respectively. He doesn't possess remarkable sprint speed but is more of a factor on the bases than he might seem at first glance, with 29 steals over the past two seasons. The defensive analytics can't seem to agree on how good he is in the field: In 2025, he saved 7 runs in right field according to DRS, but was a net neutral according to Statcast's fielding run value.

He has posted 99th-percentile maximum exit velocities before and hit some of the most physically impressive home runs you can find. He also just recorded the first single-season strikeout rate under 25% of his career. There's clearly a lot to build on here, and the Blue Jays are going to take their shot at getting the most out of him. The Astros traded for him at the 2025 deadline in hopes of doing the same thing, but did not succeed, as Sánchez hit under .200 and posted a .611 OPS in 48 games for them.

Still, Atkins acknowledged he has "always liked" Sánchez and has been interested in acquiring him for a while. It's not hard to see why. Sánchez has a strong reputation among analytically-inclined fans, thanks in large part to his 93rd-percentile bat speed. His barrel rate has been 11% or better in each of the past three seasons, and he has always crushed the baseball. What's impressive about his bat speed is that he achieves it despite having a short swing: No hitter in baseball with a below-average swing length and at least 200 PA in 2025 had a higher average bat speed than Sánchez's 75.9 mph. Displaying this much strength while remaining short to the ball is an extremely rare trait, even in an age in which teams are actively seeking hitters with that fast-short swing archetype.

Jesús Sánchez Swing Mechanics Comps, 2025

Hitter	Bat Speed	Swing Length	Swing Tilt
Jesús Sánchez	75.9	6.9'	28°
Bobby Witt Jr.	74.4	7.0'	29°
Drake Baldwin	75.4	7.2'	31°
Gunnar Henderson	75.5	7.3'	29°

Atkins also made it sound like Sánchez will get more than his fair share of playing time against right-handed pitching, which is welcome news for a team that was looking to add power from the left side all offseason. Even in 2025, a year that saw Sánchez record a 93 wRC+ after that post-trade backslide in Houston, he had a 104 wRC+ versus righties. For his career, he has a 111 wRC+ and a SLG of .450 in those matchups. Those career marks are both better than what Nathan Lukes, Toronto's other remaining lefty-hitting corner outfielder with Santander sidelined, managed in 2025.

Despite that, Atkins was quick to heap praise on Lukes during his media availability on Friday, saying the team wouldn't be afraid to slot both him and Sánchez in the outfield while moving Addison Barger to the infield on certain days when the opposing starting pitcher is right-handed. Lukes's plate coverage and his ability to put the ball in play are sure to come in handy, and the Jays do not appear to be shying away from Tetris-ing their lineup vs. RHP for the time being. All indications point to Sánchez, Lukes, Barger, and Kazuma Okamoto having fluid roles in these situations to start the year.

Even though Sánchez has hardly ever been above-average at anything that doesn't have to do with power from an offensive standpoint, he progressed in other areas of his game in 2025. Not to a shocking extent or anything, but enough to make one wonder why his results sagged:

Jesús Sánchez Contact & Discipline, 2023-25

Year	K%	BB%	Zone Contact%	Chase%
2023	26.6%	9.5%	78.9%	31.4%
2024	26.1%	7.6%	78.1%	36.1%
2025	22.9%	8.5%	82.2%	30.6%

One of the reasons his talent hasn't fully translated to results is the fact that he hasn't pulled the ball enough, even during his most productive seasons. Too many loud outs to the biggest part of the ballpark isn't the most conducive use of the raw power Sánchez has. He also reversed this trend in 2025, going from a decidedly below-average 12.2% pull-air rate the year before to a 16.9% mark, a hair above league average.

Above everything else, there are two main things holding Sánchez back. Most importantly, he simply cannot hit lefties. I wish I were exaggerating, but he's probably a non-option to face them. In fairness, the Jays have the likes of Okamoto, Davis Schneider, and Ernie Clement to pick up the slack there, but the lineup will be less powerful against southpaws thanks to Sánchez's absence. He ran a 33 wRC+ vs LHP in 2025, slightly reducing his career mark...to 41. He has more than quadruple the amount of plate appearances against righties as a big leaguer. Again, this roster has enough lefty mashers to offset that concern, but his effectiveness being strictly limited to one handedness is a crucial caveat to remember before dreaming too big on his bat speed.

The other consistent knock on Sánchez, albeit the one that should theoretically be easier to fix, is that he hits too many groundballs. His groundball rate has sat in the high-40s for most of his career, too high for someone of his skill set. Outlier bat speed and exit velocities become compromised when the hitter cannot lift or pull, which is the dilemma Sánchez was dealing with until 2025, when he started to get a handle on how to pull again.

His average contact point moved more than four inches towards the pitcher compared to 2024, and he started turning on the ball without sacrificing contact quantity. Maybe David Popkins and company continue to lean into that? It's also important to note that most of the other outlier fast-short swing guys have steep swing tilts better geared toward hitting the ball in the air (Pete Alonso, Riley Greene, Kyle Stowers). Changing tilt is hard to do year over year, but it might be worthwhile to try for Sánchez. With respect to balls in play, the goal for both him and the Blue Jays should be to make the most of those 100+ mph bullets we know he has in him.

It's an exciting opportunity for Toronto's hitting coaches, and an exciting opportunity for the fanbase to watch someone who can do things on the field that no others can. Things didn't work out for Sánchez in Houston, but every underlying hint that suggests 25-homer power and a fearsome righty masher remains. With this move, the Jays have swiftly, intelligently, and calmly responded to the unfortunate timing and circumstance of the Santander injury. Loperfido has an intriguing skill set in his own right and has certainly earned a fair shot in the big leagues by now, but this is a logical chance to take for a team with high aspirations that just took a blow on the injury front, especially when the newcomer's old team happens to be cutting costs.

The stars aligned for a hitter with untapped potential to join the Blue Jays at an opportune time. Perhaps Toronto is the place where Jesús Sánchez will truly come into his own.

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