Is 2025 Daulton Varsho For Real?

Through his first 17 games, Daulton “Darth” Varsho has a .400 ISO (which would be the highest in baseball if he had enough plate appearances to qualify), a .615 slugging percentage (fourth in MLB if he qualified), and seven home runs (the most on the Blue Jays). All this from a player whose career high slugging to this point was a cromulent .443. Is this just a small sample size statistical blip, a temporary hot streak that will soon cool off, or are these stats the result of a real change that might be at least partially sustainable?

2025 Vs Career
Daulton Varsho has been a good but not spectacular hitter throughout his career. But 2025 is a definite outlier. Consider the following chart of his percentile rankings from 2022 to 2025 (note that 2025 is an estimate, as he has not yet officially qualified):

Data from Statcast

Clearly, Daulton is excelling in multiple statistical categories, both relative to his career norms and relative to MLB as a whole. His batting average has never been outstanding, and 2025 is no exception. But his xwOBA (expected weighted On Base Average) is actually above league average, for the first time in his career, and his expected slugging is elite.

So what happened?  How did this come about?  It does not appear to be mere luck, as Statcast x-stats (at least in theory) normalize batting statistics for defence and luck. Consider the following (again, on a percentile basis – 2025 estimated)

Thanks again, Statcast

In many ways, Varsho’s 2025 is worse than his career. He is chasing more, whiffing more, striking out more, and walking less. His bat speed has always been good, and continues to be so in 2025, but the improvement is marginal. So, if his goal is to be a second Bo Bichette and lead the league in hits, he doesn't look good. But his sweet spot launch angle shows massive improvement – when he *does* hit the ball, he hits it well (more on this later)

Could the change be due to improved plate discipline?  Is he hitting smarter, laying off more bad pitches?

Per FanGraphs

So far in 2025, Daulton is seeing roughly the same percentage of pitches in the strike zone, but he has been more aggressive, swinging at a higher percentage of pitches both inside the zone (Z-swing%) and outside the zone (O-Strike%). This is reflected in his lower walk rate in 2025. His contact rate is down slightly, which contributes to his higher strikeout rate.

So Varsho is more aggressive. But how does that translate into the vastly improved statistics we are seeing?  Contact is good, but the quality of that contact is even more critical.

Per Statcast

So far in 2025, Daulton has taken his weak and topped contact (which has averaged 34% of batted balls from 2022-24) and reduced it to 23%. He has transferred that difference to barreled balls, which have gone from an average of 8% of batted balls from 2022-24 to over 20% in 2025.

So what do we have so far?  Daulton is swinging more aggressively at pitches in and outside the zone, and he is swinging more efficiently, given his much higher exit velocities, barrels, and hard hit percentages. When he connects, he does so at good launch angles (remember when Vladimir Guerrero Jr. was smoking the ball, but always on the ground?)  This has resulted in more power, which has led to a higher slugging percentage and, as a result, a high xwOBA. So instead of trying to be another Bichette hit machine, he appears to be emulating a low-average-but-significant-power Tony Taters Santander.

Is It Sustainable?
One way to evaluate whether Daulton’s epiphany is sustainable is to look at his underlying batting statistics. Are his hits squib singles and fence-scraper homers, or do the metrics suggest (cautious?) optimism?

Start with his hitting. Of 400 major league players with 25 batted ball events or more in 2025, his:

• Barrels per plate attempt of 12.7 is tied for 6^th, just ahead of some fellow named Alonso
• EV50 (average exit velocity of his top 50% of hit balls) is 22^nd, tied with some guy named Rafael Devers
• Average exist velocity of 92.0 mph is 48^th, just 0.1 behind some player named Guerrero Jr.

So Varsho’s underlying numbers support his performance. But how about his home run totals?  Has he been lucky there?

The lefty-swinging Varsho has seven home runs on the year. Has he been lucky, hitting fence scrapers that would not be homers in larger parks?  While it is true that the number of homers he would have hit would vary with park (from only four in Boston to eight in nine other parks), the average number of home runs he would have hit across all 30 parks is 6.7. So, his seven home runs reflect roughly average “park luck.”

But What About The Caveats?
The first caveat is obvious – Daulton’s low game (17) and plate appearance (71) totals. Players can get hot over such a short span and can produce above their natural talent. 

The limited time on the field raises another caveat. Opposing pitchers have not yet had a chance to adapt to the new holy-cow-Batman Varsho. Once they study his new technique and adapt to it, he may face new challenges.

And Varsho’s splits are also problematic. Of his 71 plate appearances in 2025, 12 have come against left-handed pitching. His batting average in those 12 PAs is… zero. Daulton has struggled against left-handed pitching throughout his career, with a career wRC+ against left-handed pitchers of 86, compared to 100 against right-handed pitchers. So as he faces more left-handers, his hitting may decline – though it is hard to imagine that his average against them can do anything but improve.

Lastly, some may find Varsho’s strikeout rate troubling. But some believe that a strikeout is not much worse than a regular out. So as long as his xwOBA remains high, perhaps the strikeouts are less of an issue.

The Bottom Line
Daulton Varsho appears to have had an epiphany, significantly increasing his power. His underlying stats give reason for optimism that at least a large part of this gain is sustainable. But given the small sample size, we will just have to wait and see. With Varsho’s uber defense, however, if he can sustain anything close to his current 123 wRC+, he could well be getting MVP votes.