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Blue Jays: Daulton Varsho and his power bat will be an asset for the 2026 lineup
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Photo credit: © Sam Navarro-Imagn Images
Ben Wrixon
Feb 9, 2026, 12:00 ESTUpdated: Feb 9, 2026, 04:34 EST
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Daulton Varsho hit 20 home runs in just 71 games played for the Toronto Blue Jays in 2025—that equates to a roughly 46-home run pace over a full season. Approximately 7.4% of his 271 plate appearances ended in a home run, which put him in similar territory to vaunted sluggers like Junior Caminero and Nick Kurtz. 
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. 
His career slugging percentage sits at a pedestrian .430 through six seasons, yet somehow rose to an astonishing .548 in 2025. For context, that number is higher than every season of Vladimir Guerrero Jr.’s career except his MVP runner-up campaign in 2021. 
So what changed so dramatically for Varsho last year? 
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. 
This adds up to a simple formula: hitting the ball harder in the air more often usually equals more home runs. It’s a combination that always works. The real question is whether Varsho can keep doing it with free agency looming at season’s end. 
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. 
A 25 or 30-home run season nonetheless feels within reach for Varsho if he can stay healthy. Even if he plays 136 games as he did in 2024, he should be able to set a new career-high given his legitimate gains in bat speed and hard-hit ability.

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