Shape of the Blue Jays: Sánchez, Taillon, Straw

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.

All stats entering August 6, 2026.

Quick Hits: Dasan Hill

• The Blue Jays were one of the busier teams in baseball leading up to deadline day, acquiring seven new prospects while trading away three. The most intriguing newcomer to the farm system is Dasan Hill, a 6-foot-5, 20-year-old lefty pitcher acquired in the Jeff Hoffman trade. Hill has a 5.80 ERA and a 4.17 xFIP in 45 innings at High A this year. He has struck out 36% of opposing hitters, but a 17% walk rate is holding him back. 
• Baseball America had him as Minnesota's eighth-best prospect and gave him a Future Value grade of 55. There's a risk that he doesn't pan out as a starter due to his command issues, but the stuff is electric. One of the few redeeming traits about his fastball is its velocity, as its otherwise poor shape has led to some damage being done against it, but the secondaries stand out. Hill is armed with a changeup, sweeper, slider, and curveball, with the first two being his best offerings according to BA.
• Evaluators at both FanGraphs and Baseball America are in agreement that Hill is the best prospect Toronto brought in at the deadline. BA has him as the 13th-best overall of the 85 prospects that were dealt. His powerful stuff gives the farm system another high-upside lefty arm alongside Johnny King. At all levels of the organization, the Jays are doubling down on pitchers with plus stuff and poor command, betting that they have the tools to harness the potential of prospects like Hill and big leaguers like José Soriano and Spencer Arrighetti.

Jesús Sánchez

On Wednesday afternoon, Jesús Sánchez did something that no one else on the roster has done all season: He homered in a 3-0 count. Sánchez has now done this twice in 2026, two more times than any of his teammates. It was a 94-mph fastball up and out of the zone from Hunter Brown, but he punished it. The Jays, Sánchez included, have chased so much this year that 3-0 counts have been hard to come by, but the mere idea of sitting on a high fastball in a hitter's count and driving it out of the yard has long been a common hitting strategy that it feels like this team has, for whatever reason, shied away from. This was a refreshing sight.

I had an article go up on the site on Thursday morning about the Blue Jays once again getting too enamored with hitting for contact. Sánchez's bat speed is down two ticks from last year while his contact and K rates have stayed the same, but he's an edge case in that argument because it has worked to some extent. The groundballs, which had long been an issue for him in the past, are going down; his 44% groundball rate is the lowest of his career. He still leads the team in expected slugging percentage, while his 108 wRC+ is tied for a career-best over a full season.

Between the ninth-percentile chase rate and the bat speed decrease, I'm still not sure this version of Sánchez is the most ideal to unlock his potential, but he and Kazuma Okamoto are now the only Blue Jays (min. 100 PA) with a wRC+ over 105 on the season. That's more an indictment on everyone else, but it's still nice to see the upper end of what Sánchez has in the tank.

Jameson Taillon

Jameson Taillon was the first of the team's new pitchers to suit up as he started Wednesday in Houston (4 IP, 3 ER, 6 H, 4 K, 2 BB). He had trouble finding the zone early on and was tagged for eight hard-hit balls, but he racked up a surprising amount of swing-and-miss (40% whiff, 31% CSW).

The Jays jacked up his cutter (24%, vs a 13% season average) and sinker usage (12%, vs a 4% season average) to lefties, while boosting his curveball usage to righties (26%, vs a 2% season average). Up until yesterday, he used his cutter twice as much to righties as he did to lefties, but proceeded to do the opposite in his first start in a Blue Jay uniform. They might've been onto something, as one of the six cutters he threw to righties was deposited onto the train tracks by Jose Altuve.

Jameson Taillon Swings and Misses, 8/5 @ HOU

At this point in his career, Taillon's stuff is diminishing according to the Stuff+ model hosted on FanGraphs, and he came to the team already sporting a wide arsenal. He doesn't have the pristine command he had in prior years, but his locations are still fine, so any success he finds with Toronto will likely be a result of pushing as many buttons as possible with his six pitch types. Looking at his splits this season, lefties have been a problem (5.47 xFIP, 7.8% K-BB%, 3.15 HR/9). Yesterday, though, Houston's lefties didn't have any hard-hit flyballs against him, and he even struck out Yordan Alvarez on a perfectly placed cutter up and in. It wasn't a perfect outing by any means, but it might've given him a new plan of attack against opposite-handed bats.

Myles Straw

Myles Straw had a tremendous series against the Astros, going 5-for-10 with three doubles and a triple. One of those doubles broke up Hunter Brown's no-hit bid with one out in the sixth on Wednesday. His role as a hitter remains secondary to his responsibilities in the field, on the bases, and in the clubhouse, but we saw more authoritative swings from Straw in the Houston series alone than at any other point this year. According to Statcast's bat speed, four of his hardest 26 swings on the season came at Daikin Park this week, and his fastest swing of the year, clocked at 83.5 mph, came on Sunday against the Cardinals.

Straw's hitting for a 77 wRC+ this year, but his squared-up, chase, contact, and K rates are all in the 90th percentile or better. If he continues to tap into wherever this newfound bat speed is coming from, there will be hope yet for some offense from the center field spot for the Blue Jays the rest of the way. With Daulton Varsho now out of the picture, the position looks like it's his for the rest of 2026. The team will have to make a decision on an $8M club option for the 31-year-old at season's end.