Shape of the Blue Jays: Varsho, Rogers, Springer

[Matthew Creally]

Welcome to Shape of the Blue Jays, my column where I dig into Statcast numbers to analyze recent pitch shape and swing shape trends for Toronto Blue Jays players and discuss how they have impacted their performance. Click here to read the last edition.

Quick Hits: Prospects

• Prospect heads will know that Nolan Perry is already authoring a season to remember. The former 12th-round pick hit the ground running in his return from injury, and his strong start earned him a promotion to High-A Vancouver at the start of May. On Wednesday night, he outdid himself with 10 strikeouts across five shutout innings. In three starts since getting called up, his ERA is a minuscule 0.60, and his strikeout rate is a monstrous 50.9%.
• Perry, who won Jays Centre's Minor League Starting Pitcher of the Month award for April, boasts a mid-90s fastball that has deceptive carry and a flat approach from a low arm slot. FanGraphs prospect guru Eric Longenhagen said last Friday that he believes Perry could be a top-100 prospect by season's end if he stays healthy. 
• Toronto's pitching pipeline has made some big strides over the past couple of years with the ascension of Trey Yesavage and the consistent growth of Johnny King, who should be headed to Double-A New Hampshire soon. If Perry keeps moving like this, he'll join that group as one of the most valuable young pitchers in the organization.

Daulton Varsho

Daulton Varsho has gotten hot again, with a walk-off grand slam last week against Tampa, a game-winning hit in the 10th inning in Detroit, and a three-hit night in the Yankees series. The sudden departure from his slug-based pull-air approach that paid massive dividends in a limited sample in 2025 has been a surprise, but it's working. Entering Thursday, his 120 wRC+ nearly matches his 123 wRC+ from last year despite decreases of nearly 3.0 mph in bat speed, 3" in swing length, and 3° in swing tilt. Varsho has never been a successful contact hitter before at the big league level, but he's getting more bat to ball, hitting more line drives, and striking out less than he ever has before.

Daulton Varsho, 2026 vs Previous Career Bests

	Zone Contact%	xBA	LD%	K%
2026	85.1%	0.269	32.8%	19.1%
Previous Career High	82.9%	0.245	25.0%	21.3%

As our very own Jesse Burrill noted in a recent article, the Jays' lack of slug is frustrating, and they don't exactly need another contact hitter right now, but these changes seem to be a product of Varsho changing his approach based on how he's being pitched. Burrill pointed out that Varsho is seeing fewer pitches down in the zone, especially down and away. The natural plan of attack against a guy with a high attack angle who likes to lift and pull is to pound fastballs at the top of the zone, and Varsho has done well to quickly adjust. Only 11.2% of the pitches he has seen this year have been of the off-speed variety (changeups and splitters, which he has historically crushed). That would be a single-season career low.

Tyler Rogers

Every time I write about Tyler Rogers, it serves as an important reminder that submarine pitchers with his command simply do not live by the same rules as all other pitchers. So far, he has already appeared in 23 games and has a 1.61 ERA, a first-percentile whiff rate, a 100th-percentile groundball rate, and a 99th-percentile hard-hit rate. Exactly as advertised! A weird quirk has emerged in his statistical profile, though: Hitters have stopped chasing against him. He's walking more than 7% of the batters he's facing for the first time since 2022.

Tyler Rogers Chase Rate Breakdown, 2025 vs 2026

Pitch Type	2025	2026
Sinker	27.6%	23.6%
Slider	33.3%	25.5%
Overall	29.6%	24.3%
Overall Percentile	67	9

There are a couple of reasons for this. Most importantly, opposing hitters' zone swing rate against him is down to 67.8% after sitting just above 70% for the past three years, which is likely a testament to his delivery and movement being so confusing that it's easier to decide not to swing at all. Also, the zone rate on his slider is down to 34.7% when it's never been below 45% in a season. Maybe the one-of-a-kind ride-cut shape makes it easier for hitters to lay off compared to his sinker, which falls off the table? He has gone through similar weeks-long stretches of not zoning the slider before, so hopefully it's just small-sample weirdness or a temporary lack of feel. He throws the sinker 77% of the time anyway, so this hasn't affected his overall results much.

George Springer

George Springer had an entire fanbase scratching their heads when, after jumping out to a 3-0 count in Monday's series opener against the Yankees with the tying run at third base, one out in the ninth, and Vladimir Guerrero Jr. on deck, he swung at three straight splitters out of the zone and struck out. He homered earlier in the game, and the big toe he fractured in early April probably hasn't fully healed yet, so I'm sympathetic to his plight, but the MVP-caliber player we saw last year is nowhere to be found.

George Springer Baseball Savant Hitting Summary, 2025 vs 2026

His batting average is down over 100 points, and his OPS is down nearly 400 points from 2025. His sprint speed has also dropped from the 66th to the 31st percentile, so he's clearly still going through it with the toe injury. Like most of the team, he's chasing more and walking less, but in terms of his swing specifically, his average attack angle is down from 13° to 10°, which has led to an 8.5% hike in groundball rate, the same thing that plagued him in 2024. His pull rate is also up around 8%, so he's not timing his swing optimally such that the sweet spot of the bat is travelling upward at contact. As a result, he's rolling over everything to the left side of the infield. It's not wise to jump to early conclusions about a guy who isn't 100%, but if the Jays were otherwise healthy, they'd probably be able to afford the 36-year-old more time to get right.

All stats entering May 21, 2026.

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