Former Padres Prospect Traded to Blue Jays Breaking Out for Obvious Reason

The Blue Jays appear to have given an overlooked Padres player just the tool he needed to succeed.

Toronto Blue Jays catcher Brandon Valenzuela (59) celebrates the win with relief pitcher Tanner Andrews (43) against the Miami Marlins at the end of the ninth inning at the Rogers Centre on May 26. | Nick Turchiaro-Imagn Images

The same change that helped the Toronto Blue Jays win the American League in 2025 seems to be helping a former San Diego Padres catcher they acquired last season.

Brandon Valenzuela was slashing .229/.313/.387 for the Padres' Double-A San Antonio team when he was traded to the Blue Jays at last year's deadline. In hindsight, the deal that sent light-hitting shortstop Will Wagner to San Diego looks like a mistake.

Valenzuela, 25, is slashing .256/.343/479 in 43 games since he debuted with Toronto in April. His .795 OPS ranks 10th among all major league catchers with at least 100 plate appearances at the position this season.

So how did Valenzuela make himself indispensable to a team that already had an All-Star backstop in Alejandro Kirk, after struggling for a team that was desperately in search of a competent hitting catcher last summer?

Start with his bat speed.

Ernie Clement on #BlueJays rookie Brandon Valenzuela:

"He's being agressive. When he swings and misses, you hear it in the dugout. Everybody's like 'Ooooo.' That's what you want to hear. Nobody does that when I swing."

He called Valenzuela the "most improved player" in MLB

— Mitch Bannon (@MitchBannon) June 6, 2026

"He's being aggressive," Blue Jays infielder Ernie Clement told Mitch Bannon of The Athletic on Saturday. "When he swings and misses, you hear it in the dugout. Everybody's like 'Ooooo.' That's what you want to hear. Nobody does that when I swing."

Valenzuela's average bat speed of 72.6 mph (per Statcast) ranks eighth on the team — better than Kirk, better than former All-Star Andres Gimenez, and much better than Clement (67.6).

Valenzuela is even swinging faster than veteran George Springer, who last year became the poster child for Toronto's across-the-board bat speed gains. At 36, Springer was able to add almost 2 mph of speed to his swing, in defiance of the typical aging curve.

Springer added 1.9 mph in bat speed in 2025.

And the percentile rankings show the improvement in production climb along with it.

When your Fast Swing Rate % jumps 18%, you can expect to see production tick along with it.

+8 doubles
+13 home runs
+131 points in xwOBAcon https://t.co/z9dMRabza4 pic.twitter.com/sjQPWzqzcO

— Travis Fitta (@TravisFitta) October 21, 2025

Springer wasn't the only one. By September the Blue Jays were the 12th-fastest swinging team in MLB, up from 27th in 2024. By November, they had taken the Los Angeles Dodgers to extra innings in Game 7 of the World Series.

That transformation, critically, took place without adding any key players from outside the organization.

In Valenzuela, the Blue Jays seem to have taken an overlooked player from the Padres' system and given him just the tool he needed to thrive at the major league level.

The bat-speed training could only do so much to help Wagner. The shortstop was slugging .451 at Triple-A Buffalo last year prior to the trade. This season he's .371 at Triple-A El Paso — hardly a pitcher's park.

The Valenzuela-for-Wagner trade might be less an indictment of the Padres' player evaluation skills, and more an issue of player development.

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