Better Know Your Blue Jays 40-Man: Daulton Varsho

Daulton Varsho is a 27-year-old left-handed hitting outfielder. (turns 28 July 2nd). The Jays picked him up in a trade with the Diamondbacks for Lourdes Gurriel and Gabriel Moreno when they were trying to remake the team. Varsho helped the defense part of the equation, and when he got on base, he was fast. But he didn’t get on base enough.

It didn’t help Daulton that the players he was traded for each had a good season in Arizona:

• Gurriel: 145 games, 24 home runs, .261/.309/.463 line, 3.0 bWAR.
• Moreno: 111 games, 7 home runs, .284/.339/.408 line, 4.3 bWAR.

Varsho? 158 games, 20 home runs, .220/.285/.389, 3.9 bWAR.

Varsho started 91 games in left field and 50 games in center. With his great glove, if he had been a full-time center fielder, we could have overlooked his less-than-impressive batting line. He had a 28.3 UZR/150 in the center and a 4.2 in the left. His Outs Above Average was +2 in left and +9 in center. I hoped he’d get more time in center, but we re-signed Kevin Kiermaier.

On the bases, he was 2.8 runs above average.

Another thing he did well was bunt for a base hit. He had 11 bunt singles, most in the AL.

This year, the hope is that he’ll be a little more relaxed at the plate and, therefore, perform better.

This spring, Varsho is hitting much better—.364/.476/.455—and has 6 steals, so maybe he’ll end up with more stolen bases than the 16 he had last year. 42 spring plate appearances don’t mean much, but when a guy is doing well, I try to tell myself that it means something. However, I don’t believe in small samples (unless someone is doing really well).

Esteban Rivera has a post over at Fangraphs about Daulton’s ‘cleaned up’ swing. The TL;DR version is that he is trying to keep his bat level through the hitting zone. It seems like a good plan. The question is whether it will stick. These things are easy to say, but to have them last a full season is harder.

PECOTA has him playing 136 games, 21 home runs, 14 steals, .232/.303/.421.

ZiPS: 146 games, 25 home runs, 13 steals, .241/.304/.455.

Steamer: 138 games, 25 home runs, 16 steals, .238/.308/.439.