The Northwest League has a new home run leader: Vancouver Canadians shortstop Arjun Nimmala.
Nimmala, the Toronto Blue Jays’ No. 1 prospect per MLB Pipeline, continued a sensational start to his third professional season during Thursday night’s contest against the Hillsboro Hops — the Arizona Diamondbacks’ high-A affiliate. The 19-year-old infielder went 2-for-4, delivering his eighth multi-hit performance, and blasted his sixth home run on the young season.
That broke a tie with Seattle Mariners prospect Lazaro Montes for first in the Northwest League, as both entered the night with five home runs in 2025. D-backs prospect Ryan Waldschmidt, whom Nimmala faced a night ago, also went deep in the same game, tying Montes for second place.
Arjun Nimmala (@BlueJays) is the youngest regular (19 years, 197 days) in the Northwest League.
After this homer, the @vancanadians shortstop is also the circuit's home run leader! 🇨🇦🎆 pic.twitter.com/XREyBBUFro
— Minor League Baseball (@MiLB) May 2, 2025
It’s been a remarkable early-season run for Nimmala, who’s hitting .303/.367/.573 with a 152 wRC+ (100 league average) across 21 games with Vancouver this season. Even more impressive is that he’s trimmed down the swing and miss, lowering his strikeout rate from 30.7 per cent between two levels in 2024 to 20.4 per cent in ’25.
If you remember, this time last year was a completely different story for the right-handed-hitting shortstop, considering he was slumping to a .163/.264/.250 slash line and 57 wRC+ in the same amount of games at single-A Dunedin. Back then, he was striking out over a third of the time and had only hit one ball over the fence. A few weeks later, the organization placed him on the development list to give the struggling hitter a much-needed reset.
After spending most of June in the Florida Complex League, working to get his swing back under control, Nimmala rejoined the single-A level before the end of the month, and he didn’t look back after that, registering 22 extra-base hits — including 13 home runs — over his final 53 games of the ’24 campaign, hitting .265/.331/.564 with a 147 wRC+.
Toronto’s first-round selection from nearly two years ago won’t turn 20 until after this season. And yet, despite being the youngest everyday player in the Northwest League, where the average age for pitchers is 23.3, he’s fit in tremendously well thus far.
Given this red-hot start from Nimmala, many are already wondering if a double-A promotion could be in order for this season. At this rate, that situation is quickly becoming a matter of when, not if. But, considering this franchise moved him along too rapidly last season, chances are any advancement to New Hampshire probably won’t arrive until near the end of the year.