Hard Hit, Grounded: Why the Blue Jays’ Power Isn’t Taking Off

Power is a low-hanging fruit. At least, that’s what Blue Jays general manager Ross Atkins said in a press conference last October when asked about adding some thump to the lineup this off-season. That quote spread its way all around social media and frustrated many Blue Jays fans, as it came from a team that hit 156 home runs in 2024, sixth-worst in baseball.

During the offseason, the Blue Jays did go to the tree and pick some of that fruit, signing Anthony Santander to a five-year, $92.5-million contract. Santander's 48 home runs trailed only Aaron Judge and Shohei Ohtani. The intention was that Santander would hit behind young superstar Vladimir Guerrero Jr. and those two players would mash baseballs all through the summer. While that dream is still alive, it hasn't come to fruition thus far. Through 11 games, the Blue Jays have five home runs, tied with the Rays for the lowest in baseball. It's simply not where you want to be if the postseason is your goal.

Andrés Giménez has done his part. His three home runs out of the cleanup spot have been a pleasant surprise. Tyler Heinemann’s home run last week was also a welcome surprise, and George Springer launching one in his 29 at-bats was right on par with his home run rate from the 2024 season. The real surprises here have been the players at the top of the order. Bo Bichette, who left the park four times in 51 spring at-bats, has yet to homer. The aforementioned Anthony Santander has a zero in the home run column. Most notably, Guerrero has yet to hit a home run either. In fact the Blue Jays are the only team in baseball who do not have a home run from the players who regularly hit 1-2-3 in the batting order.

So what’s the culprit here? Well, firstly, the Blue Jays simply aren’t swinging hard. Since Statcast has induced their bat tracking data, the Blue Jays are dead last in baseball in bat speed. Averaging 70.3 mph on their swings, which is half a tick lower than the 29th-ranked Miami Marlins. Swing speed isn't everything. The San Diego Padres had the slowest swing speed in baseball in 2024, and they were in the top half in home runs hit that season. But on the whole, hitting the ball harder will generally lead to more home runs. But there has to be more to it than that.

In order to hit home runs, you’ve got to hit the ball hard, and you’ve got to hit it at the right launch angle in order to have it go over the fence. The Blue Jays' hard-hit rate is in the bottom third in baseball, and their average launch angle sits at 13.4 degrees, right in the middle of the pack. The real issue lies when you mix the two. Since 2022, the Blue Jays have prioritized hitting the ball hard but not necessarily hitting it in the air. Their average launch angle on hard-hit balls ranks 26th in baseball, and if you look at just the 2025 season so far, it's sixth-worst in baseball, as seen in the Baseball Savant screengrab below.


It takes a whole lot of prominent players to get such uniformity at the team level. Since 2022, 454 major league players have hit at least 100 hard-hit balls. Here's where some prominent Blue Jays rank on that list in terms of launch angle.

• Ernie Clement: 229th
• George Springer: 276th
• Andrés Giménez: 318th
• Alejandro Kirk: 377th, 
• Bo Bichette: 393rd
• Vladimir Guerrero Jr.: 413th

This trend might have been expected to change when David Popkins took over as hitting coach, but early in the 2025 season, the Blue Jays are again sixth-worst in baseball at launching their hard-hit balls in the air. This comes to light when you compare the Blue Jays' hard-hit rates with their barrel rates: Barrels are the perfect combination of exit velocity and launch angle, and barrelled balls all have at least a .500 batting average and a 1.500 slugging percentage. The Blue Jays do a pretty good job of the first part of that equation. Their hard-hit rate sits at 41.7%, in the top 10, but their 6.1% barrel rate is fourth-worst.

Hitting the ball hard on the ground isn’t necessarily a bad thing. All things considered, you'd rather hit the ball hard wherever you hit it. But it's much easier to score runs with one elevated hard-hit ball than it is to string two or three of those hard-hit grounders together, especially because major league defenses keep getting better. To some degree, a hard-hit grounder is a waste of a hard-hit ball.

We're only 11 games into the season Ten games into last season, Santander had a .632 OPS and Guerrero’s wasn't much better at .712. The two players would end up hitting a combined 78 home runs. There is a long way to go, but elevating those hard-hit balls will be a major key. If the Blue Jays don’t want to stay afloat against a very tough schedule to start the season, then they need to start sooner rather than later.