The Blue Jays may have found something in Eloy Jiménez.

We’re only a few days into the 2026 Grapefruit League schedule, but the 29-year-old slugger is already turning heads inside Toronto’s camp this spring. It’s been an impressive early surge at the plate, albeit across just two games, as he’s gone 3-for-5 with a pair of extra-base hits in that span — already blasting his first home run of the spring.

As always, the usual spring training caveats apply here, especially for someone like Jiménez, who’s attending camp as a non-roster invitee and spent all last season in the minors. There’s still a long road ahead of him between now and Opening Day, which is just over a month away.

At the same time, though, Jiménez brings plenty of power potential to the Blue Jays’ camp, given his history as a former 30-home-run hitter with the Chicago White Sox. He’s been chasing that 2019 breakout performance ever since, struggling to replicate it largely due to health — or a lack thereof.

There’s a chance, however, that this time around could be different for the right-handed-hitting thumper.

It’s still incredibly early. But so far, Jiménez’s process and results have closely mirrored those from his earlier days — even with this minuscule sample size — as he’s shown flashes of his 2020 Silver Slugger form, success that has put him on the organization’s radar as a player on the bubble competing for one of the final spots on the 26-man roster.

Being able to hit the ground running this spring has to feel gratifying for Jiménez, who’s endured five straight injury-riddled campaigns — including a pair of separate IL stints in 2025 — since capturing his only Silver Slugger Award from the ’20 COVID-shortened season. He’s been the horse trying to catch that elusive carrot over the last several years, and he may now finally be in range again.

Before inking a minor-league deal with the Blue Jays last September, Jiménez briefly made stops with the Baltimore Orioles (second half of 2024) and Tampa Bay Rays organizations (first half of ’25), failing to find his footing with either of those clubs. And there wasn’t any guarantee he’d receive another opportunity with Toronto after only mustering three hits in 18 at-bats during his six-game stint at Triple-A Buffalo to conclude last season.

After becoming a free agent last off-season, Jiménez hit his way back to the Blue Jays, courtesy of his .426 slugging percentage and 12 extra-base hits — including five home runs — in 36 games during the 2025-26 Dominican winter league season, winning the round-robin MVP award.

Toronto’s brass kept in touch with Jiménez’s camp throughout the winter, believing he might be worth betting on in 2026 — and they were convinced after observing his renewed success, signing him to another minor-league contract last month. That decision is already paying early dividends for the organization, considering he’s arrived in “tremendous physical shape” and has looked the healthiest he’s been in many years, manager John Schneider said prior to Monday’s 4-3 exhibition loss to the New York Mets, as relayed by Sportsnet’s Arden Zwelling.

Schneider’s also been pleased with where Jiménez’s hitting mechanics are this spring, comparing them closer to his early White Sox days than the oft-injured versions of himself from the last few seasons. Those comments certainly aligned with the encouraging results from the veteran outfielder’s Grapefruit League debut on Saturday, which included a multi-extra-base-hit performance against the Boston Red Sox.

Both of Jiménez’s hits exploded off his barrel, each exceeding a 95-m.p.h. exit velocity, the first of which nearly cleared the Green Monster replica in left field at JetBlue Park, resulting in a 104.8-m.p.h. double off a high fastball from Brayan Bello — who isn’t the best starter in a Red Sox rotation that includes ace Garrett Crochet, Sonny Gray and Ranger Suárez, but still impressed to a career-best 3.35 ERA in ’25.

That 398-foot double from Jiménez, who homered off a hanging changeup in his final at-bat versus the Red Sox, is especially notable because it travelled the furthest distance of any tracked ball he hit over the final five months of his ’25 campaign. After clubbing a pair of 400-plus-foot home runs last April, he didn’t have a single batted ball travel beyond 390 feet for the rest of the year.

Of course, a larger sample size will be required before the Eloy Jiménez hype train can start gaining serious momentum. But these are steps in the right direction, particularly from a quality-of-contact standpoint, for someone whose resume includes elite damage outputs (90th percentile or better hard-hit rate in three of four qualified MLB seasons).

When healthy, Jiménez’s hard-hitting profile also features borderline-elite bat speed, most prominently showcased in 2023 via his 88th percentile ranking (75.2 m.p.h.). Multiple injuries prevented him from replicating that reading during the ensuing season, and while Baseball Savant doesn’t provide average bat speeds for minor-league or spring training games, the eye test and minimal underlying data we do possess from this spring suggest this is the closest Jiménez has been to recapturing his full potential in a few years.

If he can build on it further, it may turn up the heat on fellow roster bubble candidates in camp, and even force a tough decision involving Nathan Lukes, who, as a left-handed-hitting outfielder with an option remaining on a team blocked by fellow lefty outfielders, could potentially lose out to the more adaptively-fitting, right-handed-hitting Jiménez.

Where would Jiménez play if that scenario comes to fruition?

For his career, the Dominican slugger has actually featured better reverse splits than traditional (improved production versus right-handed pitchers than lefties), posting a career 116 wRC+ (100 league average) versus righties. There could also be pathways to earning at-bats against southpaws, too, considering he excelled in limited opportunities in 2022, slashing .300/.370/.471 with a 139 wRC+ across 81 plate appearances.

The Blue Jays plan to utilize Jiménez in the outfield corners and at the DH spot early on in camp, as Schneider revealed. But he’ll also continue to gain experience at first base once Vladimir Guerrero Jr. leaves for the World Baseball Classic after this week, where he’s played just 45 innings — all in the minors and coming last season at Triple-A.

If Jiménez were to make Toronto’s Opening Day roster, the primary objective would involve having him provide additional power upside in place of the injured Anthony Santander, similar to Jesús Sánchez’s role. Given how well this franchise maximized lineup matchups a season ago, Jiménez’s inclusion could help move the needle forward more than Lukes in ’26 — and here’s how the Blue Jays could best maximize their lineup against right-handed pitchers:

Here’s how the club could best maximize its lineup with Jiménez versus left-handed pitchers:

These lineup combinations, of course, would remain fluid throughout the season as players require rest and potential poor performances arise. In both scenarios above, Myles Straw’s importance to this team increases significantly, as he’d offer late-game defensive upside for Jiménez — most notably during the games where he and Sánchez fill the corners around Daulton Varsho in centre.

Since it’s still the early days of spring training, the possibility also remains that Jiménez opens this season in Buffalo — with Lukes earning that final roster spot — and continues to rediscover his craft, affording the Toronto brass additional time to see what it has in him, while also keeping an eye on whether he can, finally, stay healthy.

Because Jiménez finished last season at Triple-A, he isn’t considered an Article XX(b) free agent — a player in camp on a minor-league deal with six-plus years of major-league service time who concluded the previous season either in the majors or on the big-league IL — and, therefore, isn’t eligible to trigger an opt-out five days before Opening Day — think of Ryan Yarbrough’s case last spring.

Thus, barring any separate opt-outs included in his deal, the Blue Jays would be able to stash Jiménez in the minors as depth if he doesn’t break camp with the team. That’s a nugget worth keeping in your back pocket when the time comes to make a decision.

In the short term, the once-forgotten, now-resurgent slugger has quickly emerged as the most intriguing NRI in camp, and has the potential to provide the biggest impact of them, too.