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Blue Jays 40-man Roster Review: Daulton Varsho had his best power-hitting season since joining Toronto
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Photo credit: © Kevin Sousa-Imagn Images
Ryley Delaney
Jan 27, 2026, 11:00 ESTUpdated: Jan 27, 2026, 09:58 EST
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The 2025 season was easily Daulton Varsho’s best season with the Toronto Blue Jays.
This is Blue Jays Nation’s annual 40-man roster review ahead of the new season. If you missed the most recent article, we looked at Trey Yesavage. In this article, we’ll look at Daulton Varsho.
Acquired for Lourdes Gurriel Jr. and Gabriel Moreno two days before Christmas Day in 2022, expectations for Varsho were high once joining the Blue Jays. Defensively, he’s the best outfield of our generation, but his first two seasons with the bat weren’t great, registering an 84 wRC+ in 2023 and a 99 wRC+ in 2024.
The 2022 season saw Varsho hit a career-high 27 home runs in 592 plate appearances, but that dropped to just 20 in 581 plate appearances in 2023 and 18 in 513 plate appearances in 2024. Varsho’s 2024 season was cut short due to needing rotator cuff surgery, something that’d keep him out of the Blue Jays’ lineup to begin the 2025 season.
Well, sort of. He was healthy enough to swing the bat, and in 37 plate appearances in Spring Training, the centre fielder hit four home runs. Varsho didn’t begin his 2025 regular season until late April, and in two of his first three games, he went deep. This was a trend throughout the season when the outfielder was healthy.
The outfielder’s first month of action in 2025 was a mixed bag, as he hit eight home runs in 100 plate appearances from April 29 until May 31. However, he slashed .207/.240/.543 in that stretch while striking out 31% of the time, all for a 103 wRC+. On May 31, Varsho left the game after round the bases, injuring his hamstring in the process.
Varsho missed the next two months of action, aside from seven rehab appearances with the Triple-A Buffalo Bisons. In those 23 plate appearances, Varsho hit an additional three home runs. Then, once he returned on August 1, Varsho slashed .256/.310/.551 with 12 home runs over 171 plate appearances for a 134 wRC+, while his K% dropped to 26.9%.
In the postseason, Varsho slashed .227/.284/.427 with three home runs in 81 plate appearances for an 97 wRC+. That said, those numbers are propped up thanks to those two fantastic games against the New York Yankees in the American League Divisional Series. In Games 1 and 2, Varsho slashed .750/.778/1.875.
The rest of Varsho’s postseason wasn’t nearly as good, hitting just one home run over 72 plate appearances where he slashed .164/.222/.254 with 19 strikeouts, a double, and a triple. That one home run did drive in the game-tying run in Game 1 of the World Series, as the Jays later went on to win 11-4.
All told, between Spring Training, rehab stints, the regular season, and the postseason, Varsho smacked a grand total of 30 home runs in 439 plate appearances. If he kept that pace for 600 plate appearances, Varsho would’ve hit 41 home runs.
Now yes, Spring Training and rehab assignments shouldn’t count, you’re right, but Varsho began the season smacking the ball in what was easily his best power hitting season. But if you’re just to look at his 20 home runs in 271 regular season plate appearances, that pace would be good enough for 44 home runs over a 600 plate appearance season.
That gives a lot of optimism for his 2025 season. Fangraphs’ Steamer has him slashing .227/.294/.432 with 21 home runs in 487 plate appearances for a 100 wRC+. However, other projection models have him hitting 26 home runs, which would be excellent production for the Jays’ bottom of the lineup. 
Those projection models don’t factor in strong defence, as it has him posting a 1.6 fWAR to 2.2 fWAR, but that’s strictly because it doesn’t account for the defence he provides in centre field. Despite playing just 550.1 innings with 10 Defensive Runs Saved, 9 Outs Above Average, and 6 Fielding Runs Value, no one is even close to Varsho’s 85 DRS, 50 OAA, or 52 FRV since the start of the 2022 season.
Sign him to an extension as soon as possible, please.
Ryley Delaney is a Nation Network writer for Blue Jays Nation, Oilersnation, and FlamesNation. She can be followed on Twitter @Ryley__Delaney.

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