When the Jays dumped Trevor Richards on the Twins at the 2024 deadline, the return was an infielder who’d signed a way under slot deal in the sixth round of the previous year’s draft out of the decided non-baseball hotbed of Penn State University by the name of Jay Harry. Baseball America ranked him 426th among draft eligible prospects that year and promptly never wrote about him again. After the trade, Fangraphs’ rated him the 87th best prospect dealt at the deadline and described his likely peak as “a utility guy for a weak Double-A team.” Which is harsh, perhaps, but looked about right as his OPS last season, split between A+ and AA, started with a five.
I’m writing about him here, so you can guess that things have improved. And indeed they have, to the tune of a .327/.368/.591 line split between New Hampshire and Buffalo that makes Harry one of the best 40 or so hitters in the upper minors this season.
So what’s happened here? Harry was an ultra-contact-oriented hitter in college, with a swing geared just to try to poke line drives through the infield. You can see that approach carry over to his first taste of pro ball after the draft, where he struck out just 6.8% of the time in A ball but failed to generate much impact. His contact rate dropped, though, from 85% that season to 76% during his time with the Twins organization in 2024 and then 71% after his trade to the Blue Jays. At the same time he showed a little bit of game power, going from 1 home run in 129 PA in his draft season to 12 in 448 in ‘24. Last year he seems to have been caught in between, bringing his contact back to 77% but losing almost all of his impact. In 2026, his contact rate remains at 77%, but all of the power production has returned and then some. Normally with a left in New Hampshire, you can write some power jumps off as the product of park factors, but a) he was awful in the same park last season, and b) he’s hit even better since moving up to Buffalo.
On video, you can see his swing change a little over the course of the last three years, going from a very upright setup with almost no hand load and the bat starting upright in 2024 to a bit deeper of a load and more angle in 2025. His 2026 swing is back closer to 2024, very upright and with his hands starting out front to give him a super short path to the ball. These are all subtle differences, though, and I don’t see evidence that he’s reinvented his swing.
There are a couple of other changes to note. First, he’s just swinging a lot. He’s always been aggressive, but his 59.5% rate this season is among the highest in the league and would be in the top five in the majors. That’s resulted in a collapse in his walk rate, although without much change in his strikeouts.
I’m writing about him here, so you can guess that things have improved. And indeed they have, to the tune of a .327/.368/.591 line split between New Hampshire and Buffalo that makes Harry one of the best 40 or so hitters in the upper minors this season.
So what’s happened here? Harry was an ultra-contact-oriented hitter in college, with a swing geared just to try to poke line drives through the infield. You can see that approach carry over to his first taste of pro ball after the draft, where he struck out just 6.8% of the time in A ball but failed to generate much impact. His contact rate dropped, though, from 85% that season to 76% during his time with the Twins organization in 2024 and then 71% after his trade to the Blue Jays. At the same time he showed a little bit of game power, going from 1 home run in 129 PA in his draft season to 12 in 448 in ‘24. Last year he seems to have been caught in between, bringing his contact back to 77% but losing almost all of his impact. In 2026, his contact rate remains at 77%, but all of the power production has returned and then some. Normally with a left in New Hampshire, you can write some power jumps off as the product of park factors, but a) he was awful in the same park last season, and b) he’s hit even better since moving up to Buffalo.
On video, you can see his swing change a little over the course of the last three years, going from a very upright setup with almost no hand load and the bat starting upright in 2024 to a bit deeper of a load and more angle in 2025. His 2026 swing is back closer to 2024, very upright and with his hands starting out front to give him a super short path to the ball. These are all subtle differences, though, and I don’t see evidence that he’s reinvented his swing.
There are a couple of other changes to note. First, he’s just swinging a lot. He’s always been aggressive, but his 59.5% rate this season is among the highest in the league and would be in the top five in the majors. That’s resulted in a collapse in his walk rate, although without much change in his strikeouts.
4 months ago
