Varsho Must Go On (Indoor Skating)

Daulton Varsho must be upset. After breaking out in 2022, he was traded to Toronto, a World Series contender in dire need of outfielders. Then he had a down season, the Jays were swept out of the Wild Card round, and his old team made a surprise appearance in the World Series. Gabriel Moreno and Lourdes Gurriel Jr., the players Arizona returned to Varsho, were a key part of that run. Oh, what could have been.

The most troubling of all those events, from Varsho’s point of view, was certainly his performance. Everything else was partially or fully out of his control, but this one was very noticeable to him, and it’s hard to add value offensively when you’re coming off a .285 clip. Yes, he’s a good defensive player and adds value on the basepaths, but most of a position player’s value comes from hitting, and frankly, his output hasn’t been enough.

But ah, how the tables have turned. A year after being one of the weak links in Toronto’s best offense, he’s one of the best players in a lackluster unit. Among regular Jays, only Justin Turner and Davis Schneider hit better. (Danny Jansen hasn’t played enough yet to count as “normal” in my eyes.) There’s not much he can do about the rest of the team, but Varsho has turned his fortunes around for now. Now there are two questions: How did he do it, and can he continue?

A quick look at Varsho’s batting average would suggest one big change: He’s walking more. He is averaging an 11.7% walk rate this year, up from 7.7% last year, not including strikeouts. And indeed, few hitters in baseball have lowered their swing rate more than Varsho. He both chases a little and throws to the wrong pitches a little. His swing rate has dropped dramatically, he’s going forward more often, the whole nine yards. Did we solve it? If so, that’s cool, I can close this thread early and go get some lunch.

Bad news for Hungry Ben: We didn’t solve it. Frankly, Varsho’s swing rate looks like a red herring to me. If you break things down geographically, I’m not even sure his transformation is a sustainable good thing. His heart rate dropped from 78% to 73%, league average. His swing rate on pitches in the chase zone, went from 20% to 17%. He was already very good at throwing bad pitches, and he hasn’t improved that much. He swings a few places around the edge of the plate or off of it, but those swings are tricky to judge. The main thing going on here is a few swings on hitable pitches, however, and there isn’t enough extra that it takes to break balls to fix it.

Wait, nothing can be solved? Varsho’s xwOBA decreased while his results increased. By that particular metric, he’s having his worst year in the majors. Is this just a matter of luck, something that will disappear with the passage of time and leave the Varsho looking like last year’s model, or maybe worse? Sadly and for my lunch plans, I don’t think so. But good news for Varsho: I think he’s doing something tricky to balance.

You probably think of Varsho as a power hitter, or at least close to one. He’s working two straight seasons of 20 or more homers, and he’s built like a runner, 5’10” and lefty. He’s quick and strong, which is how you end up as a catcher/center field hybrid as a prospect. But the data paints a different picture. His exit velocity numbers don’t hold much. Even in 2022, his best offensive season to date, he was in the 40th percentile in EV of his top 50% of batted balls. He has hit 112.5 mph over his entire major league career, 48 hitters already passed. this year, and 124 batters hit the ball more than last year. Every year he ranks in the bottom third of baseball in hit rate.

Varsho’s home runs aren’t due to his big raw power. They come courtesy of a strategy best demonstrated by teammate Isaac Paredes: Find the nearest wall and put the ball over it. This chart should help explain:

Ah, yes. Put it in the air and pull it, and the centrifugal force plays up. That’s especially so given the recent changes to Toronto’s arena; the 2023 renovation moved the right-center field wall 16 feet closer to home plate (and 4.5 feet higher). Park features take time to settle in, but Rogers Center has been the center of energy for the past decade. It makes sense that it is better than now.

You know how I said that all of Varsho’s swing changes were smoke and mirrors? That may be true as it relates to his pursuit of the middle pitches, but that doesn’t mean nothing has changed. You can’t tap into your lateral pull power if you don’t pull the ball, and it’s hard to pull pitches in the outer part of the strike zone.

In 2024 so far, lefties are pulling 41% of their contact through the air when swinging at pitches in the inner third of the strike zone. That number drops to 21% in the third quarter. This is just a problem of physics; think about the angle the bat makes when hitting the ball at each position and you will get the idea very quickly. Varsho is no exception to this rule; he pulls in 58% of his fly balls inside the third and only 24% on the outside third.

We know that Varsho does not turn up very often this year. Where are those missing swings? The third is external, more or less. Check out his swing rates in a horizontal slice of his career. I’ve added the plate outs on both sides to round out the sample, and also because that’s more opportunities to put the ball in play:

That’s a big change. He mainly contributed to the outer part of the plate. Last year, he ranked third among lefty hitters in strikeout rate. This year, he ranked 106 out of 125, which is the 15th percentile mark. Meanwhile, he is swinging More in fields where he can lift and pull. If you are a visual person, look at it this way. Here are his replacement rates as of 2023:

And here they are in 2024:

That is an incredibly important change. Pulling power hitters should not turn on pitches without checking their horizontal position; they should be increasing their damage potential. Varsho’s new approach does a great job at that. His fly ball rate has increased from 41% last year to 52% so far in 2024, and 22.5% of his plate appearances this year have ended in a fly ball, up from 18% last season. and pre-2024 job marks 16.3%.

Why is Varsho doing better than his xwOBA? At least it’s because you’re crushing on these fly balls. Despite the uninspiring exit velocity, he’s producing a .772 wOBA from it, compared to a .522 xwOBA. That’s what pull hitters with average exit velocity do, as I found out in the study of Paredes. If you have a moderate amount of juice, targeting the nearest wall works wonders, especially if your team takes in that wall.

I really don’t know if he can make all these changes stick. After going 0-for-4 on Wednesday, he’s on a 12-game hitting streak, though he’s been just below average at the plate throughout that window thanks to his rookie streak. In fact, it is difficult to make repairs to this extreme without causing problems elsewhere. He flirts with having a fly ball a lot; his popup rate is a career high and his drive rate is a career low. His new approach is boom or bust, too; if the ball doesn’t go out of bounds, it probably gets a glove.

However, in my eyes that weakness is a reasonable trade-off. We’re talking about an elite defender with game-breaking pace here. He doesn’t need to be the best striker in the world to make the whole package work. If he’s a 30-homer guy instead of 20, adds another double off that new high wall, and sprinkles in one belt like he has throughout his career, he’d be 15-20% better than average offensively easily. This bat for Varsho’s glove guy is a perennial All Star.

It’s been a tough year to be a Toronto fan. Bo and Vladdy are arguing. The Raptors are starting over. The Maple Leafs continue to be Maple Leafs. Drake has been ripped apart by Kendrick Lamar. Not many things are going well right now. But regardless of what the expected numbers say, I think Varsho is bucking the trend and bright days await him if he sticks to his new plan.

Editor’s Note: All figures in this article are as of Wednesday morning, unless otherwise noted.