Daulton Varsho Is Entering a "Prove-It" Year

In an offseason in which multiple high-profile additions to the Blue Jays pitching staff came early, and the markets of Bo Bichette and Kyle Tucker loom large, the returning pieces of Toronto's core have taken a step back into relative obscurity. Since Vladimir Guerrero Jr. has already been handsomely paid, and if the assumption is that any marquee hitter the team signs over the rest of the winter would come in on a multi-year deal, their top extension candidate is someone we have barely heard about at all in recent weeks: Daulton Varsho.

Varsho's 2025 was complicated. On one hand, he posted his highest single-season batting average, slugging percentage, and OPS since getting dealt to Toronto. He also matched his highest home run total since the trade with 20, in less than half the plate appearances he had the last time he reached that mark in 2023. His barrel rate shot up to 15.9%, among the very best in the league. He hit the ball harder than ever, solved the popup issue that plagued him in 2024, and maintained elite range in center field. It was his best season with the club.

On the other hand, Varsho was quite injury-prone. He missed the first month of the season recovering from a shoulder surgery that happened at the end of 2024, and when he came back, his arm strength, which was 40th percentile in each of the previous two years, plummeted to the 5th percentile, making him an easy target for runners looking to take an extra base on a ball in the gap. He was then sidelined for all of June and July with a hamstring issue he sustained when trying to stretch a double into a triple, which might explain why he became a non-factor on the basepaths despite maintaining above-average sprint speed. 

Even with all of Varsho's positive leaps on the field, especially with the bat, the Blue Jays have yet to see him reach his full potential for a full season. 2026 is his last year under team control, and even though he flashed a lot of promise in recent months, he still has plenty left to back up. 

It would be a delight for the entire organization if Varsho could maintain his newfound power production over a larger sample and give the lineup the consistent lefty threat it has needed for years. One thing is for certain: His offensive ceiling is higher than it has ever been before. Recovering shoulder and all, he set career-highs in barrel rate, 90th-percentile exit velocity, maximum exit velocity, and 90th-percentile bat speed, showcasing all the tools necessary to be one of the best power hitters in the game. 

Daulton Varsho 2025 Percentiles (>= 100 BBE)

The question is whether his plate skills will keep up. He has never been a contact-first hitter, and a decrease in contact and discipline is to be somewhat expected when optimizing one's swing for power. Yet, in 2025, Varsho swung more and came up empty more often than he ever has. His zone contact rate plunged into the mid-70s, his 29.8% swing-and-miss rate was a career-high for a full season, and his chase rate exceeded 30% for the first time since 2022. This led to the highest K% he has posted in a full season, and his lowest BB%, period.

Hitting is a game of trade-offs, and some schools of thought suggest Varsho was successful in walking the line last year. DRC+ is Baseball Prospectus' catch-all hitting metric that inputs process more than results, making it a useful counterpart to the more explanatory and similarly-scaled wRC+. Varsho's DRC+ in 2025 was 120, which smashed his previous high of 97 (100 indicates a league-average hitter).

His improvements follow some worthwhile changes he made to his swing. In 2024, Varsho was held back by an inflated 18.2% popup rate; he had high bat speed, but got under the ball far too often. He responded by flattening his swing by 3° and shifting his stance angle from 6° open to 5° closed, a couple of smaller changes that work in tandem to keep his front half from dropping and flying open before contact. 

In any case, this seems like one of those instances where it's a smart move to bet on the tools. Once again, Varsho displayed all the fundamental traits of an elite power hitter in 2025: He hit the ball hard, he hit it in the air (but not too far in the air), he pulled the ball, he swung hard, and he was aggressive on pitches he could damage. He also managed to work around his bat-to-ball deficiencies by adjusting his stance to maximize his potential.

Fans may recall that Varsho would frequently give the same answer when asked how he was suddenly hitting so many home runs: by always trying to hit a groundball up the middle. For a player who has one of the most pull-air oriented swings in the game and historical troubles with popping it up too often, approaching each at-bat with the goal of harnessing his bat speed by staying on plane and keeping the ball down naturally leads to more hard line drives and fly balls. The sample was small enough last year that banking on a 46-homer pace might not be reasonable, but Varsho has now given us every reason to expect at least 30 bombs in 2026, health-permitting.

Varsho also has some work to do in the field if the Blue Jays are going to consider giving him a long-term extension. His arm strength post-shoulder surgery simply did not meet the standards for a big league center fielder. A torn rotator cuff requires a long recovery, and his excellent range easily kept him a net positive on defense, but you'd be forgiven for wondering whether his throwing arm will fully bounce back, given the magnitude of the drop.

Daulton Varsho Throwing Percentiles (>= 50 throws)

Among players with at least 50 throws from center field, Varsho's 74-mph 90th-percentile throw was a full 4.5 mph less than Jake Meyers, the next closest guy . . . and Meyers was 4.7 mph slower than the guy ahead of him (Myles Straw, coincidentally). It's tough to assess just how much Varsho will improve because there is very little short-term precedent for outfielders receiving surgery to repair a torn rotator cuff, which is an injury much more common in pitchers. 

Meyers himself had shoulder surgery after tearing his labrum in the 2021 postseason, causing him to miss the first half of 2022. He had 58th-percentile arm strength before, but it only dropped to 42nd when he first returned to action, and it returned to its original levels by 2023. According to Baseball Prospectus, Meyers has not been on the injured list for an arm injury since then, and I am no doctor, so any reasons for his sudden throwing weakness are beyond me.

With the lack of outfield comps for the injury that led to this problem for Varsho, I'm going to tentatively hope that his arm strength will at least recover to 2025 Meyers levels next year. This would still be in the basement of all center fielders, but luckily, the impact of a weak arm on a center fielder's defensive value is far less than subpar range, an issue that Varsho does not have. Even in his truncated season, he was still worth six runs of value in the field, according to Baseball Savant, good for the 84th percentile. If his arm remains this weak, it may dissuade teams from offering him a longer-term deal because it makes a move to the corners virtually impossible, should the rest of his defense regress. Still, he has plus-plus range at a premium position - the most important thing a fielder can lay claim to.

The Blue Jays have sky-high aspirations next year. They've made the moves in free agency to back that up, and more are likely to follow. Many players are expected to be focal points in guiding them to a successful season: Dylan Cease and Tyler Rogers with their new paydays, Trey Yesavage embarking on his first full season, Cody Ponce attempting to stick the landing back on this side of the Pacific, and Vladimir Guerrero Jr. hoping to reach the standards set by his legendary postseason in the first chapter of his 14-year megadeal. Do not lose Daulton Varsho in this shuffle. If he can prove himself, he just might slot himself into the team's plans beyond 2026. He has more riding on this season than almost anyone on the roster, but there is reason enough to be optimistic that he'll deliver.