Hello Bluebird Banterers and welcome to my first post, formally known as nute39jays I will be trying to help out the two Tom’s with some posts.
It is the time of year where a career minor leaguer can look like an All Star and a unknown prospect can put themselves on the public’s radar but, as most know, you can never believe anything that happens in Spring Training what with the small samples and veteran players working on certain aspects of their games. However that doesn’t mean it can’t be fun to
take a look around the Jays Spring Training stats and ask what if this was sustainable or do deep dive to look for signs of actual improvement instead of small sample size noise.
I will be digging thru some batted ball data and underlying metrics on a few Blue Jays who have had some interesting starts to their Spring Training to see if even in this small sample there could be something to be excited for or if their current production has been more of a mirage that is likely to fall off more towards their expected production moving forward.
Daulton Varsho
First up is Daulton Varsho who in his first two seasons as a Jay hit 217/289/398 with 38 HRs, a 24.9% K rate and a 8.5% BB rate for a 91 WRC+ over 1094 PAs.
Varsho went into last season coming off a off-season shoulder surgery and I would be lying if I said I wasn’t worried as historically shoulder surgeries have had a major impact on a player’s offense the following season but Varsho bucked that trend and put together easily his strongest season as a Jay despite the should surgery and another two months missed due to a hamstring injury Varsho hit .234/.284/.548 with 20 HRs, a 28.4% K rate and a 6.3% BB rate for 123 WRC+ over 271 PAs.
Last season, Varsho had career highs in AVG EV, Max EV, Barrel rate, Hard Hit Rate, Fly Ball rate and K rate so looked like a batter selling out for power and well it worked for him he had the lowest Zone Contact and total Contact rates of his career but when you are hitting a HR every 14 PAs while being one the best defensive CFs in MLB that is going to provide a ton of value.
Going into Spring Training, the question was what would Varsho do this year would he still be hitting HRs at 44 per 600 pace and so far in a very small sample he is hitting .432/.475/.946 which of course is not going to last but for me when I dug thru the data there is one stat that I can’t ignore, not only is Varsho carrying forward the power from last season but he is doing so while improving his contact rate and striking out at ridiculously low 2.5%!
Obviously this level of hitting is not sustainable for anyone but a Varsho who hits for power like he did last season while improving his contact rate and while still playing his customary high end defense in CF would be on the verge of at least an All Star season if not an MVP level type of season.
It is Spring Training so my first thought was he is feasting on minor leaguers and his opponent quality has been roughly between AA and AAA level according to Baseball Reference but he has also hit very well against some known pitchers having HRs off Skubal, Abel as well as a 2B off Vest, a 3B off Warren and base hits off Abel, Chandler and Alvarado.
I also considered maybe he is just not striking out because it is Spring Training and the lesser quality of pitching but his lowest K rate in Spring Training since 2023 was 15% from the 2024 season, that regular season his K rate did jump to 26.7% but his Called+Swinging Strike% that Spring Training was 21.5% which means he was likely heading to a regression in K rate as CSW% tends to a decent job predicting future K rates although like most stats needs more data than Spring Training provides in order to stabilize.
Varsho was never going to sustain a 2.5% K rate, but like his 2024 season the bad news for the sustainability of his K rate improvement is also going to be dampened a lot by his CSW% so far in Spring Training as he is massively out performing his 18% CSW.
The improvement in his CSW% is mostly on the contact portion of the stat and that tracks with his Contact rate being 88.2% this Spring but like the CSW% he has also shown higher Contact rates in past Spring Trainings but also again like the CSW% it has never been quite this good before.
Prior to this Spring Varsho’s best Spring CSW% was 21.5% and his best Contact rate with regular at bats was 84.3%, this Spring his CSW% is 18% and his Contact rate is 88.2% so even if Varsho could make enough contact to get his K rate to the lower 20% range that paired with last season’s power and his glove could be enough for a 2026 All Star season.
With Spring Training the sample is too small to make any sweeping judgements but what do you think, is Varsho about to have a career season by striking out less and hitting 35+ HRs are is the extra contact all a Spring Training mirage.
Let me know in the comments what do you predict for Varsho this season.
