Factor in Anthony Santander, who was lost to shoulder surgery on the eve of spring training, and the Blue Jays are currently operating without four above-average hitters with power they were counting on as lineup regulars. That production needs to be made up somewhere. So, when a proven league-average hitter like Sosa became available, the Blue Jays went and got him.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe can hit. He\u2019s like Ernie (Clement), he\u2019s going to swing. And he makes a lot of contact,\u201d Blue Jays manager John Schneider said. \u201cWe\u2019ve been trying to look for that right-handed profile of bat for a little bit.\u201d<\/p>\n
For now, Sosa will help diversify Toronto\u2019s lineup against both lefties and righties and can play second, third and first base. But as regulars return from the injured list \u2014\u00a0George Springer and Addison Barger aren\u2019t expected to be out long-term \u2014 he could shift into a sub-everyday role, starting a couple times a week while receiving pinch-hit opportunities in the right matchups.<\/p>\n
One presented itself Tuesday, leading off the eighth inning of Toronto\u2019s wild 9-7 victory over the Brewers. Hard-throwing right-hander Abner Uribe was entering from Milwaukee\u2019s bullpen to face rookie catcher Brandon Valenzuela, who\u2019s shown some pop in his career but also plenty of swing-and-miss. The Blue Jays were down two and needed a baserunner, so Schneider made the surface-level unusual move of lifting a switch-hitter in favour of a right-handed one to face a righty.<\/p>\n
The difference was Sosa\u2019s ability to get bat to ball. His MLB whiff rate is over 10 points lower than Valenzuela\u2019s minor-league one against lesser pitchers. Meanwhile, Uribe\u2019s frisbee slider and running sinker average two feet of movement spread horizontally across the zone. It takes a very adjustable swing to cover that much plate. Which is exactly what Sosa did, getting a look at a couple of Uribe sliders and a sinker before inside-outing a 99-m.p.h. heater on the inner half and dumping it into shallow centre field.<\/p>\n
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\u201cHe\u2019s probably going to put the bat on the ball. We\u2019re just trying to get something in play there,\u201d Schneider said of Sosa, who later went first-to-third aggressively before scoring on a groundball. \u201cThat\u2019s what we\u2019re looking for out of him, for sure.\u201d<\/p>\n
Sosa demonstrated an intriguing blend of that above-average contact ability with some slug against both lefties and righties while serving as Chicago\u2019s everyday second baseman last season. He walked as rarely as any player in baseball, yet still produced a perfectly league-average 100 OPS+ and wRC+. He wasn\u2019t a factor on the basepaths and received middling defensive grades from various advanced metrics, which led to a serviceable 1.4 fWAR. The White Sox ended up giving him the most starts of any position player on the team.<\/p>\n
But Chicago unexpectedly signed Japanese slugger Munetaka Murakami to play first base this season, which pushed Miguel Vargas into full-time duty at third. Up the middle, the club is giving extended run to Chase Meidroth and Colson Montgomery, two priority products of their thin minor-league system. That left Sosa without a clear path to playing time.<\/p>\n
\u201cYeah, it was a little complicated. It\u2019s hard to stay consistent when you don’t play for three or four games in a row, and then you have to come into the ninth facing a pitcher throwing 100,\u201d Sosa said Tuesday, through club interpreter Hector Lebron. \u201cBut you’ve got to find a way to be ready for those moments. It can happen at any time.\u201d<\/p>\n
The 26-year-old does that with a fascinatingly unusual approach in the batter\u2019s box. Among qualified hitters last season, Sosa ran MLB\u2019s second-lowest walk rate and seventh-highest chase rate. Yet, against the first pitch of a plate appearance, he swung less than a quarter of the time, well below league average.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Once teams learned that they began attacking Sosa in-zone early, which is why nearly two-thirds of his plate appearances last year began with a strike despite the fact he seldom swung. And nearly 40 per cent of his plate appearances went 0-2.<\/p>\n
That\u2019s a lot. Only two qualified hitters in the league saw a higher percentage of pitches when behind in the count than Sosa last season. He was constantly on the wrong side of count leverage. But that\u2019s when he deployed one of his most uncanny abilities \u2014 getting to pitches outside the zone.<\/p>\n
\u201cMy entire life, I\u2019ve been like that \u2014\u00a0a good contact hitter,\u201d Sosa said. \u201cI\u2019m very aggressive. But, at the same time, I want to be under control.\u201d<\/p>\n
Sosa fouled off a bit more than a quarter of the pitches he saw when behind in counts last season, and a fifth of the pitches he was thrown outside the zone in those situations \u2014\u00a0both 99th percentile marks across MLB. He was determined to bat away pitch after pitch until he got one he could handle.<\/p>\n
And when he did, he typically made quality contact. Not always\u00a0hard\u00a0contact, mind you. His ability to generate bat speed and exit velocity is right around league average. But the shape of that contact \u2014\u00a0how often he hit pitches high enough to keep them off the ground but low enough to avoid lazy fly balls \u2014\u00a0was exceptional.<\/p>\n
Statcast groups this band of optimal launch angles into a metric called sweet-spot percentage. Sosa has ranked within MLB\u2019s 90th percentile in 2025, and 99th in 2024, when only Freddie Freeman and Logan O\u2019Hoppe topped him. Last year, he posted a bottom-10 groundball rate and top-five line-drive rate.\u00a0<\/p>\n
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Combine that with a heavy out-front approach and you\u2019ll find Sosa among the upper third of MLB hitters in percentage of balls hit in the air to the pull side since the start of 2025. This is the shape of contact that most consistently produces damage.\u00a0\u00a0It\u2019s a lot easier to pull a ball over the fence than to drive it the opposite way. Especially when you aren\u2019t working with gobs of natural raw power.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m always trying to be early, be on time,\u201d Sosa said. \u201cAnd trying to hit the ball back up the middle. To make good contact. That’s my approach.\u201d<\/p>\n