Stats prove Kazuma Okamoto's first Blue Jays home run showed nearly unmatched power

Kazuma Okamoto has been making a great impression on his new team so far in Spring Training. The Toronto Blue Jays third baseman has made a couple of tough plays in the field, dismissing any worries about his defense at the hot corner. Meantime, he raised some eyebrows with his monster home run against Clay Holmes and the New York Mets on Monday (Feb. 23).

That home run caught a lot of people's attention for many reasons as it was an eye popping blast to straight away center field, which, on it's own, should be impressive enough. But when we're diving into the numbers we can see just how truly impressive it is.

Stats prove Kazuma Okamoto's first Blue Jays home run showed nearly unmatched power

The ball went 431 feet off a sweeper from Holmes. According to Baseball Savant, Holmes gave up just one home run on that pitch throughout the 2025 season. It was also a well located pitch from one of the Mets' best starters. When Holmes threw that ball, it crossed the plate 1.9 feet off the ground and 0.6 feet from the centre of the plate.

That is the epitome of a ball thrown low and away. A pitch exactly where you want it to go if you are the pitcher, trying to throw an effective sweeper. It's such a good pitch location that only five right handed batters have hit a ball off a right hander throwing that kind of pitch in that location within the statcast era.

The players that have accomplished that are a who's-who of home run hitters; Javier Bàez, Yoenis Cespedes, Brent Rooker, Ronald Acuña Jr. and Adam Duvall. That's some good company for Okamoto to be in so early in his MLB career. The Blue Jays are hoping that it's just the beginning of a new found power source injected into their lineup.

Okamoto first started playing for the Yomiuri Giants as a 19-year-old and over the past 11 years he has developed into one of the better slugging exports from the pacific rim. During that time he hit 248 home runs with a slash line of .277/.361/.521 with an .882 OPS and 1089 hits in 1074 games and six times he hit 30+ home runs.

The 29-year-old is off to a good start and he'll have a chance to further impress Blue Jays fans when he suits up for Team Japan in next months World Baseball Classic.