Toronto Blue Jays centerfielder Daulton Varsho is Varshowing harder than ever

By all rights, this should be a lost season for Daulton Varsho.

The Toronto center fielder missed the first month of 2025 while rehabbing from offseason rotator cuff surgery.

He started his year with a seven-game minor league rehab stint during which he batted .129 with no walks and no extra-base hits, good for a wRC+ of -29. Varsho got one month in Toronto, and then a strained hamstring stole another two months from him.

After seven more games in the minors, Varsho returned on August 1 and now has 20 more games under his belt.

So just to recap, Varsho's season has gone: rehab for a month, play for a month, injured for two months, play for another month.

He's seen a grand total of 44 games of action.

That's not exactly enough time to get your bearings, especially after a major surgery. At least, that wouldn't be enough time for most people.

Varsho is putting up the best numbers of his career. He'd never topped a wRC+ of 106 in a single season, but he's currently at 127.

He's already posted 1.5 WAR, and although he can only get into a maximum of 74 games, he's almost certain to put up the third-most WAR of his career.

What makes all this even wilder is that Varsho only heated up during this most recent stint.

He ran a 102 wRC+ before the hamstring injury, and he's at 161 since he returned.

As the cliché goes, getting Varsho back from the IL was Toronto's best trade deadline acquisition.

In fact, on a per-PA basis, Varsho has been a top-25 position player, on pace for 4.3 WAR over a normal, 150-game season.

While his overall numbers are not groundbreaking, his power has been.

Varsho is just three home runs short of last season's total despite taking 334 fewer trips to the plate.

The percentage of his hits that have gone for extra bases (68 per cent) ranks first among players with at least 150 plate appearances.

He also ranks third in home-run percentage (8.4 per cent) and second in isolated power (.346).

It's impossible to know just what the 29-year-old's season would've looked like if injuries hadn't factored in, but it's taken less than 50 games for him to show he's levelled up his power in a meaningful way.