TORONTO — Over the winter, as David Popkins started constructing relationships together with his gamers and Daulton Varsho recovered from shoulder surgical procedure, the brand new hitting coach took a deep dive into the Gold Glove centre-fielder’s swing. Whereas reluctant to share too many particulars, he approaches the method like a detective on a case, inspecting each swing a participant has taken to discern the bodily commonalities when he’s shifting nicely and when he’s struggling, figuring out which components kind a batter’s best basis within the field.
“Each time a participant has success, there are usually clues which might be left behind — success tends to do this,” Popkins explains. “And it is attempting to see in these a number of home windows in several time intervals, how has he moved and are the strikes comparable? Like, hey, when he strikes actually small into his back-side, it has been good this yr, this yr and this yr. Fully totally different swings, however the identical motion. You gather as lots of these as you’ll be able to, and also you see the place to begin that is pure to him.”
It is in that course of that the seeds of Varsho’s energy surge since getting back from the injured listing — six homers and three doubles amongst his 12 hits in 14 video games — had been planted, and a wider development for the Blue Jays’ whole hitting program is happening.
The Varsho examine revealed that the 28-year-old produces finest when his bat stays vertical as he hundreds up for his swing, permitting him to raised preserve his bat above the ball and attain extra pitches. Final season, it flattened out an excessive amount of, resulting in a swing aircraft that always ended up below the ball.
To date in 2025, in a pattern of 57 plate appearances that’s notable however too small to attract definitive conclusions from, his common exit velocity of 93.2 m.p.h. is sort of six miles an hour above his profession fee, he’s set a brand new exit velocity excessive at 113.9 m.p.h., has a sweet-spot proportion of 38.2 per cent that’s six per cent higher than his profession mark and a hard-hit fee of fifty per cent, a significant soar from his 36.5 per cent common.
There have been trade-offs — his strikeout fee of 36.5 per cent is sort of 11 per cent increased than his common, whereas his 5.3 per cent stroll fee is down greater than three per cent — however Varsho feels he is extra capable of get his “high hand to work above the baseball” which helps “my swing typically keep within the zone for an extended time.”
In flip, that provides him “little issues that you simply manipulate to attempt to get to that really feel,” so he’s “capable of go A-to-B and be mainly brief and fast” to the baseball.
These basic adjustments are why supervisor John Schneider believes the harm Varsho has produced is extra sustainable than sizzling streaks in years previous.
“It’s simply permitting his barrel to be a bit of bit extra correct,” says Schneider. “I do know Spring Coaching is hard to gauge, however you form of noticed it there, and guys work out issues at totally different occasions. I am not evaluating him to Jose Bautista, however I believe that is the one which jumps out as you work one thing out mechanically, and it simply provides you a greater shot each single time. So, I believe that Varsh continues to be like an untapped useful resource offensively. He is acquired all of the all of the traits that lead you to assume that he will be actually rattling good and I believe he is beginning to get there.”
The way in which he’s getting there may be additionally essential for a Blue Jays workforce that remade its hitting division over the winter, led by the hirings of Popkins and assistant Lou Iannotti.
Not solely did Popkins arrive as a recent voice, however with the Minnesota Twins, he helped develop a motion-capture course of and reporting software, and he introduced that know-how to the Blue Jays. He’s since labored with the membership’s bio-mechanics division, “who did an amazing job making that in a short time, beginning to catch us as much as the place we have to be.”
The foundational components to measure actions had been already in place when he was employed in October, however the Blue Jays “did not have it in a concise report that we may use straight away,” he says. Now, they’re producing motion experiences monitoring “sure markers that we expect are essential within the swing, checking issues and ensuring the actions are staying on the fitting path and if issues are altering with out us seeing it with our eyes.”
They’re not accomplished creating, both, with Popkins saying the tempo at which the bio-mech employees has made progress “goes to get us to a extremely good level sooner or later.”
Equally essential, after all, is how that info is offered to gamers, and on that entrance, Popkins is assembly gamers the place they’re at. If they need biomechanical scans, swing trails and reams of knowledge, no sweat. Or if they need extra conventional video, all good, too.
“We’ll ask them what they’ve and what their ideas are and the way we are able to information them again to the place they have to be — it is not all the time us main, generally it is us collaborating,” says Popkins. “Daulton was extra video, speaking it by means of with him, and connecting his feels to the video is what’s actually essential for him. That’s how he learns. That is how he likes to be taught.”
What additionally helped Varsho lock in a few of these feels was the restrictions on what he may do due to his shoulder rehab.
He solely obtained clearance to start out taking half-swings in January, forcing him to decelerate and construct some muscle reminiscence together with his bat vertical and palms above the baseball, which “helped me perceive, OK, that is all I must do within the sport.”
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“I did not have the power to only take a full-on swing,” he continues. “So I used to be like, how can I’m going A-to-B, be brief and direct and sq. up the baseball? I slowed myself down and slowed my mind down to have the ability to try this. That is gotten me again to who I used to be after I was a younger child, going A-to-B attempting to sq. up the baseball. You are not attempting to take a giant swing and hit a homer. It is helped me be extra simplified. …
“If I am ready to do this, I can cowl much more pitches,” he provides, “as a result of the minute that you simply get longer is the minute that my barrel loops beneath and I haven’t got a number of success.”
Proper now, Varsho is having a number of success, making important contributions to a lineup that’s wanted them, leveraging the instruments of the hitting division working to make up misplaced floor, as nicely.
