Varsho has turned his biggest weakness into a strength
The game plan for how to get Daulton Varsho out became increasingly obvious as he stumbled through a bumpy first season with the Toronto Blue Jays in 2023: Attack him with fastballs.
Elevated fastballs, ideally.
Despite his above-average bat speed (71st percentile, according to Baseball Savant's new metrics), Varsho's struggles against fastballs (high fastballs, specifically) generally played an outsized role in what was undeniably the nadir of his young career.
While he recorded full-season worsts in virtually every meaningful offensive category, including batting average (.220) and slugging percentage (.389), Varsho saw fastballs 58.2% of the time, an increase of almost seven percentage points from the year prior.
He saw more fastballs in two-strike counts than all but 26 hitters out of more than 600. And Varsho saw a greater percentage of fastballs at the top of the strike zone than anyone else in the majors.
Why? Because he hit only .236 against four-seamers. He slugged just .380 against sinkers. And against elevated fastballs - both four-seamers and sinkers - he mustered an expected weighted on-base average of .299. The book was decidedly out.
"In the past, like coming up through the minor leagues, I did a really good job of being able to hit the heater," Varsho said ahead of Monday's series opener against the Baltimore Orioles. He then lamented getting "a little bit exposed" by the big leagues' higher-quality heaters.
"I mean, everybody's throwing harder than they've ever thrown now."
Indeed, the average fastball in 2024 hums in at 94.1 mph, tied for the highest league-wide velocity mark ever.
Despite that, Varsho's made great strides towards shoring up his most pronounced weakness at the plate.
Varsho's been one of the Blue Jays' best hitters through the first two-plus months of the season, leading the club in home runs (10) and isolated power (.247; the difference between slugging percentage and batting average) while trailing only Vladimir Guerrero Jr. and Davis Schneider in wRC+ (118). That turnaround is due to his increased success against fastballs.
How's he done it? Through a multifaceted series of adjustments that include:
- "A conscious understanding of how guys are going to throw (to) you," i.e. better game-planning and approach
- A mechanical tweak to create a shorter bat path
- Improved barrel control that allows him to get the sweet spot of the bat on the ball more consistently.
The results have been quite promising, although the 2024 campaign is still within the borders of small sample territory.
Excluding his 37-game cameo as a rookie in 2020, Varsho's never had a slugging percentage better than .440 against four-seam fastballs in a big-league season. This year, the 27-year-old's pulverized four-seamers to the tune of a .550 slugging percentage. For reference: Aaron Judge has slugged .544 against four-seamers in 2024, while Varsho's mark also tops Kyle Schwarber's and Freddie Freeman's.
Varsho boasts a .306 isolated power against four-seamers and sinkers, which is 115 points higher than his 2023 mark and significantly better than it was in 2022 when he smacked a career-high 27 homers for the Arizona Diamondbacks.
"It's really cool to see Varsh make that adjustment," said teammate Daniel Vogelbach, who Varsho credited as a key figure in his bounce back. "Now, he can pretty much hit anything in the zone."
To be fair, that last remark may be a bit of a stretch, as Varsho continues to struggle against elevated fastballs, slugging just .273 with an average exit velocity of 81.7 mph against heaters in the top third of the strike zone. He's also whiffing on elevated fastballs more than ever.
Still, if there's any consolation, he's seeing fewer fastballs at the top of the zone than he has in years, perhaps a concerted response by opposing pitchers to his improved general production against the pitch. Additionally, of the two hits he recorded on elevated heaters in 2024, both went for extra bases, including an April homer at Petco Park that came off his bat at 103.7 mph.
It remains to be seen whether these improved results are sustainable and if he can find a way to mitigate the still-remaining weaknesses at the top of the zone. At the moment, Varsho looks far more like the hitter Toronto thought it acquired in last offseason’s blockbuster trade with Arizona for Gabriel Moreno and considerably less like the guy who often looked overmatched against velocity in 2023.