Blue Jays souring rapidly on big-time offseason trade addition
By Kristen Wong
The Blue Jays are likely feeling queasy about the Daulton Varsho trade given Varsho’s recent performances this season.
Leave it to the New York Yankees to make fun of an AL East rival’s poorly-aging trade.
The Toronto Blue Jays acquired outfielder Daulton Varsho in December of 2022 hoping that Varsho could add some reliability and power to their batting rotation. After Varsho’s hot start to the 2023 season, he’s since struggled to adjust to pitchers’ fastballs, an issue that may have gotten overlooked by Blue Jays scouts last year.
Varsho is slashing .213/.276/.370 with eight homers, 22 RBI, and 46 strikeouts through 56 games; the former Diamondbacks breakout player cost Toronto top catching prospect Gabriel Moreno and outfielder Lourdes Gurriel Jr., and so far, Arizona looks to be on the winning side of the trade.
A Yankees social media account thought it was a good day to point out some of Varsho’s deficiencies on offense:
— Yanks Go Yard (@YanksGoYardFS) June 1, 2023
Blue Jays may not have done their homework on Daulton Varsho
Varsho enjoyed a triumphant 2022 season that saw him record a career-high 27 home runs and his overall well-roundedness was viewed as a green flag, yet he still came with some looming question marks.
As Yanks Go Yard’s Adam Weinrib wrote back in February, Varsho “swung and missed more than most, didn’t make up for it with a keen batting eye, and didn’t make consistent hard contact, all adding up to a package that Statcast considered worse than 93% of offensive players in 2022.”
So to sum up, the Blue Jays forked over an arguably top-five prospect in Moreno to acquire… a solid defender whose 2022 offensive campaign may have been just a strange fluke.
The 26-year-old continues to have his highs and lows as a hitter, and this far into the 2023 season, it doesn’t seem as though Varsho has improved his consistency at the plate. He’s unable to adapt to fastballs and doesn’t perform well against righties either, begging the question: What can Varsho do well?
He can play above-average defense, which makes him a worthy addition to most teams — just not necessarily worth giving up a top-ranked prospect. The more the Blue Jays look back on the Varsho trade, the more they may scratch their heads and wonder what went wrong.
Next. 1 trade every MLB team would like to have back. dark