Why Luis Urias Fits The Blue Jays Profile Perfectly

The Blue Jays certainly have a type.

On Saturday afternoon, the Blue Jays made a minor trade with the Diamondbacks to acquire infielder Luis Urias in exchange for cash considerations. The move on its own won’t generate a ton of headlines. He has bounced between organizations and is a career .231/.329/.378 hitter over eight big league seasons.

Urias had an “upward mobility clause” in his contract, which forced the Diamondbacks to either promote him, release him, or trade him, and the Blue Jays pounced at the opportunity.

The Blue Jays' bench has been heavily skewed toward left-handed hitters and outfielders, so the addition of a right-handed hitting infielder doesn't come as much of a surprise. What is surprising, however, is why they chose Urias.

Urias has never established himself as a consistent, productive major league hitter. He has an OPS under .700 in each of his last three seasons. He’s in the bottom 20% in the league in sprint speed, and defensively, he’s been a negative in both Outs Above Average (OAA) and Defensive Runs Saved (DRS). Add it all up, and you can see why the Diamondbacks weren’t willing to give him a spot on their major league roster.

The question now becomes, what do the Blue Jays see in Urias that the Diamondbacks don't?

The answer may lie in the underlying data. More specifically, the Blue Jays may be betting on a set of underlying skills that look far better than Urias’ traditional numbers suggest.

First, Urias made notable changes to his approach in the 2025 season with the Athletics. Prior to that point, he had been known as a patient (or sometimes even passive) hitter. He drew his fair share of walks (career 10.2 BB%), but the approach often came at the expense of impact contact. During that stretch, his line drive rate, average exit velocity, and wOBA all sat below league average.

In 2025, however, Urias began making a different kind of contact. Urias’ swing rate stayed relatively inline with his career average, but the amount of contact he was making, particularly on pitches in the zone, skyrocketed.

The 91.8% zone contact rate rose by 9.2% over the prior season and by over 7.3% on his career average. That zone contact rate was higher in 2025 than both Bo Bichette (91.7%) and Nathan Lukes (91.0%), who are both relatively well known for their ability to make contact on pitches in the zone.

There’s more to hitting than simply making contact; some of the highest contact rate hitters in baseball typically have slower swings. Urias hasn't done that; in fact, he’s started making more contact while also swinging harder. It's a rare combination.

The combination of elite zone-contact rates and increased bat speed was a major part of the Blue Jays' offensive identity during their 2025 World Series run. It's exactly the type of skill set the Blue Jays have shown a preference for.

Making contact is important, but contact quality matters too. Urias has always been able to hit the ball in the air to the pull side, which adds another layer to his offensive profile. The league-average pull-air rate sits at 16.8%. Urias’ career mark is 19.8%.

Hitting the ball in the air to the pull side matters, especially when you're not an exit velocity machine. This chart is from a FanGraphs article from 2023 about wOBA and hit direction based on exit velocity.

Urias has never been great at producing elite exit velocity, so when he does get his bat on the ball, hitting the ball to the pull side is going to yield better results.

Taken individually, none of these traits is enough to make Urias an impact player. Taken together, however, they paint a picture of the exact type of hitter Toronto has targeted in recent years: a player who controls the strike zone, makes frequent contact, and creates enough bat speed to do damage when he pulls the ball in the air. These are exactly the types of underlying skills teams often target because they tend to stabilise before traditional results do.

Part of the reason the Blue Jays bought into Urias is that he’s been keeping up this production in Triple-A so far. On the season, he’s hitting .361/.393/.546. The .367 BAPIP is likely to come down due to regression and making the adjustment to major league pitching, but all of the adjustments he made in 2025 look to be sticking around so far. The zone contact rate is still at an outstanding 92.4%, and while we don’t have public data for bat speed in Triple-A, the 87.3 average EV is slightly higher than the 86.2 EV he had with the A’s in 2025, suggesting that the bat speed is holding firm.

The underlying traits help explain why Toronto targeted Urias. Roster construction explains why they moved now.

Team needs are a large part of this, too. The Diamondbacks middle infield is set with two all-stars, Ketel Marte and Geraldo Perdomo. There wasn’t much of an opportunity for him there, but on the Blue Jays, there was a real need. Down on the farm, the Blue Jays' middle infield options are lackluster. Top prospect Josh Kasevich has just a 94 wRC+ in Buffalo. Arjun Nimmala and JoJo Parker are still too far away to make an impact this season, and there are no other currently healthy middle infielders on the 40-man roster that could help the team.

The Blue Jays aren’t asking Urias to save their offence. If they were, he wouldn’t have been available for cash in the first place. Instead, Toronto is betting on a collection of traits that it has consistently valued: elite zone contact, improving bat speed, and the ability to pull the ball in the air. Similar bets have produced mixed results, but the Blue Jays clearly believe Urias is worth the gamble. Whether Urias becomes the next success story remains to be seen, but if nothing else, his acquisition serves as another reminder that the Blue Jays clearly have a type and Urias fits it perfectly.