One bold prediction for Blue Jays heading into Opening Day

Opening Day for the Toronto Blue Jays is upon us. The Blue Jays begin their quest to defend their AL East division title / AL pennant, tonight (Mar 27) against the West Sacramento Athletics at Rogers Centre. While the Blue Jays did a lot of things very well last year, the knock is that they didn't hit a "ton" of home runs. Sure they hit 191 (good for 11th) but they only had one player hit more than 25 home runs last season and that was George Springer.

But this year it feels like the Blue Jays are right on the cusp of picking up that "lack" of power and our bold prediction for 2026 is that the Blue Jays finish in the top five in MLB in home runs.

Blue Jays should see a power surge in 2026 catapulting them to a league leader in that category

Last year the top five home run hitting teams were: the New York Yankees (274), LA Dodgers (244), Seattle Mariners (238), LA Angels (226), and New York Mets (224). Four of the other top ten teams all surpassed 200 home runs. That's a lot of ground to make up for the Blue Jays but after what we saw in the postseason and with the way they have been swinging the bat in Spring Training, it feels like this can be an achievable goal for them.

Let's start at the top with Springer. It might be tough for the now 36-year-old to get there again, but the key was his load management. Springer served as the primary DH for the team and looks like he'll play a lot of games at that position again in 2026 and it's not out of the question to believe that Springer can get close to 25 bombs in '26.

Vladimir Guerrero Jr. hit 23 home runs in 2025, and added eight in 18 games in the postseason. That's a 9.12 HR per at-bat pace. Nobody does that in the regular season. The league leader, Cal Raleigh, hit 60 home runs which was a 9.93 HR per at-bat pace. But Guerrero could find himself somewhere between the likes of a Juan Soto (13.42 AB/HR, 43 HRs) and Jazz Chisholm (14.90 AB/HR, 31 HRs).

After Guerrero the Blue Jays should also see improved numbers from Daulton Varsho and Addison Barger. The pair combined for 41 home runs last season but neither played the full year. Varsho had two lengthy IL stints, Barger didn't make the Opening Day roster. However, the two lefties have been tearing the cover off the ball in spring and they've been doing it against both left-handed and right-handed pitching. With eight combined home runs in Grapefruit League action, they should easily join Guerrero and Springer in the 25+ home run category.

These four players finished 2025 as the top four home run hitters in the Blue Jays lineup and while there may be a little bit of regression from Springer, the other three should see improvements. So should the rest of the lineup. In 2025 the next top home run hitters in order were; Bo Bichette (18), Alejandro Kirk (15) and Nathan Lukes (12).

In 2026, the Blue Jays could add two more 20+ home run hitters in newcomer Kazuma Okamoto, and Jésus Sànchez. Okamoto is playing his first year of MLB after spending years destroying baseballs in Japan. The 29-year-old third baseman is projected for a high of 24 home runs and a low of 22 via FanGraphs. Sànchez is the replacement for Anthony Santander while the latter recovers from shoulder surgery. While Sànchez may only predominantly start against right-handers, he's still projected for 15 home runs. But the Blue Jays have given him some rope in spring to get some at-bats against lefties and that could pay off huge in the regular season.

So if we call all things equal, the top four guys hit 25 each and then Okamoto and Sanchez provide 20 (just to use round numbers to make it easier) that gets us to 140 home runs. That means they need 82 more home runs from the rest of the lineup to tie what the fifth place Mets did in 2025. Here's how they get there.

Alejandro Kirk was good for 15 home runs last year, a career high for the 27-year-old catcher, and he's projected to do that again. We'll take the 15 home runs flat as Kirk showed in the postseason and throughout spring that he's going to bring his patience to the plate, and look for pitches he can drive. He's been so good at working the count, getting his walks (9.5% walk rate in 2025) and not swinging at stuff he can't get a hold of and when he does hit the ball, he hits it hard (50.8% hard hit rate, 91st percentile).

The other every day players up the middle are Ernie Clement and Andrés Giménez who are projected for 25 home runs combined. The bench of Tyler Heinemann, Davis Schneider, Nathan Lukes and Myles Straw are projected for 21 combined home runs. That brings us to 201 total home runs and so the Blue Jays would need to find 23 more home runs from somewhere, whether that's a prospect getting called up, or a couple of these players surpassing their projections.

Of course the "top five" in that category is going to be a moving target and hitting 224 home runs could still end up being outside of the top ten if other teams also have monster years mashing the ball. But the Blue Jays are on the right track to over coming the one area that they seemed to lack offensively last year, and if it all goes right, they should catapult themselves into the upper echelon conversation of home run hitting teams in 2026.