What could Will Wagner's offensive profile look like with Blue Jays?

Nine games into his major-league career, Will Wagner has quickly made an impression for a Toronto Blue Jays club looking for good developmental stories to carry into 2025.

The 26-year-old is hitting .393/.414/.500, has already made a start in the cleanup spot, and after posting a .876 OPS at triple-A this season he’s looking the part of a major league ballplayer.

While the hot start and the strong minor-league numbers imply that Wagner is a safe bet to keep raking in a Blue Jays uniform, the trade deadline acquisition might be the team’s most unpredictable young player when it comes to future production.

FanGraphs’ six projection systems are utterly baffled by how to handle Wagner for the rest of the season, spitting out lines as solid as .270/.352/.390 and as ugly as .225/.291/.351.

If he produced at the high-water mark he could be a solid starter at any position with a 115 wRC+. The second line (83 wRC+) would require him to be an elite defender at a premium position to be viable, and while Wagner has some defensive utility, that description simply doesn’t fit him.

The way different projection systems weigh different data points always makes for some disagreements, but Wagner’s range is a massive outlier among Toronto’s emerging big-leaguers:

It’s possible those numbers are overstating Wagner’s volatility, but it makes sense that the infielder’s offensive profile is difficult to pin down.

The rookie has never hit more than 10 home runs in a single pro season, he’s generally been a touch old for the levels he’s played, and his excellent production is best explained by his ability to draw walks and avoid strikeouts.

In 355 plate appearances at triple-A in 2024, Wagner managed a BB/K rate of 1.59. To put that in perspective, there have been 2,427 player seasons with 350+ PA at the level over the last 15 years and just 15 have topped that number.

Finding comparables for Wagner’s dominant plate discipline at triple-A is tricky because not only have fewer players’ reached his heights, some who did were journeymen approaching their 30s who had spent years at the level.

Looking for players in their age-26 season or younger (Wager is 26, but he’s in his age-25 season) who put up a 1.50 BB/K or better in the last 15 years, we’re left with this list:

• JB Shuck
• Mark Hallberg
• David Cooper
• Javier Sanjoa
• Chase Meidroth
• Cole Figueroa
• Xavier Edwards

That’s not exactly a group of household names.

Shuck carved out a respectable seven-year career, Cooper played 72 games with the Blue Jays but couldn’t find his footing at the MLB level, Figueroa had a similar taste of the bigs (48 games), and Hallberg never reached the majors.

On the flip side, Edwards is off to a great start to his MLB career with a 125 wRC+ in his first 76 games, and both Sanoja and Meidroth are legitimate prospects.

There aren’t enough examples of guys with Wagner’s plate discipline at the triple-A level to draw conclusions, but one thing we can say with confidence is that a beefy BB/K is no guarantee of success.

Pitchers in the major leagues are better at throwing strikes than minor leaguers and aren’t cautious with their opponents unless they present serious power threats. They also possess stuff nasty enough that even the best contact hitters have a hard time avoiding Ks.

The Blue Jays have seen this effect in recent years a couple of times. Cavan Biggio had an excellent triple-A BB/K in 2019 before getting his callup (1.21) and he never topped 0.67 in the majors. Ernie Clement had a stellar 1.63 last year and barely missed the plate appearance cutoff above. That number dropped to 0.25 in the majors in 2023 and it’s 0.35 this year. Leo Jiménez has posted excellent BB/K numbers at times over his minor-league career, and his 0.88 mark at triple-A in 2024 has fallen to 0.18 so far in the majors.

Wagner’s advanced approach at the dish is undoubtedly an asset, but it will take some time to know how well it works against the best pitchers in the world. His walk and strikeout rates have room to decline and still remain excellent, but they can only fall so far because he doesn’t hit the ball particularly hard.

The 26-year-old produced a respectable max exit velocity at triple-A (110.8 mph), but most of his Statcast numbers were middling compared to MLB averages.

There are ways to compensate for unimpressive numbers like that by squaring up balls and hitting the launch-angle sweet spot with consistency, but posting below-average numbers in these metrics against triple-A pitching isn’t encouraging.

Horwitz is an interesting example of a similar player thriving without special ball-striking abilities, but his numbers at triple-A were slightly better than Wagner’s across the board this season (89.6 mph average velo, 38.8 per cent hard-hit rate, 5.3 per cent barrel rate) — and the fact he’s been able to keep his strikeout rate (17.5. per cent) so close to his triple-A number (15.8 per cent) seems difficult to replicate. His walk rate has fallen, but enough is holding steady elsewhere in his offensive profile that he’s remained effective.

It’s not impossible for Wagner to manage something similar. There’s a reason some projections have him as a notably above-average hitter already. His polish and minor-league track record are indisputably impressive.

At the same time, there are factors working against him. If his typical batted ball figures are less valuable than average, he needs to put more balls in play than most hitters. If his power is relatively muted, then drawing walks will be critical as a method to compensate. Creating this balance is far from impossible, but it won’t be easy.

For now, Wagner is doing just about all he can to prove he belongs in the majors, but trying to figure out the trajectory of any hitter new to the game’s highest level is always tricky. With Wagner, it seems like it could be even more difficult than usual.