Nobody is mistaking Varsho for one of baseball’s elite power threats. He’s not going to hit more home runs than Juan Soto in 2026, even if his per-game pace from last year would have said so if extrapolated over a full season. Still, it is fair to wonder if Varsho has unlocked something significant in his swing that will translate to this upcoming season.
Varsho’s career high in home runs is 27, which he recorded in 2022 with the Arizona Diamondbacks before being traded to the Blue Jays. He hit 20 with a .389 slugging percentage in 2023 and went deep 18 times the following year.
So what changed so dramatically for Varsho last year?
Moment of the season.
Grand slam, Daulton Varsho. #BlueJays
For starters, he barreled the ball 15.9% of the time in 2025, up nearly 10% from the 6.2% mark he recorded the previous year. He went from being ranked in the 31st percentile to being in the same group as Rafael Devers and George Springer.
Varsho also recorded a career-high 40.3% hard-hit rate last year, which led to the highest average exit velocity (89.9 mph) of his career. He managed this while hitting fly-balls more than half the time and hitting ground balls less often than ever before.
His .494 expected slugging percentage, while not quite at the level of his actual mark, suggests what he did in 2025 wasn’t a fluke. His bat speed jumping to a career-high 75.6 mph under new hitting coach David Popkins also bodes well for his future performance.
There are some serious red flags in Varho’s profile, though. He’s a career .227 hitter who struck out 28.4% of the time last year while chasing a lot. He doesn’t walk much, either, as evidenced by his career-low .284 on-base percentage. There isn’t much value in his offensive game when he isn’t hitting the ball over the fence at an elite clip.