Louis Varland’s arrival from the Twins has come with a signature two-handed “velo slap” that his teammates swear amps him up. It has matched the numbers, with the 28-year-old left-St. Paul native emerging as Toronto’s most trusted late-game weapon—backed by el
Toronto didn’t have to look far to spot it.
During the Blue Jays’ visit to Minnesota last June. Graham Johnson noticed Louis Varland’s two-handed back smack on his way out of the bullpen—an unusual practice even within an off-season world where pitchers chase adrenaline bursts. Johnson had seen the “velo slap” before. but only from pitchers he’d associate with personal-best chases on the radar gun. Seeing Varland get one before a big-league outing stuck in his mind.
Seven weeks later, that memory connected to the moment Toronto went shopping at the deadline. Varland, the righty who has since become one of the game’s most dominant relievers, was acquired from the Twins.
The Blue Jays bullpen coach still remembers the early jokes and then the quick realization. When pitching coach Pete Walker and assistant pitching coach Sam Greene watched Varland arrive with the ritual on his way out. the coach wondered whether it was “a him thing” or something Varland did simply because of the moment. “Louis didn’t do it the very first outing with us. And then the second one. he had talked to Drop (Alex Andreopoulos. then a bullpen catcher) about doing it … and Drop just kind of shoved him. ” Johnson recalled.
By the time that game ended, Johnson was asking what the next step was supposed to be. “I was like, all right, I know what this is. So that game ends, I go to him, ‘Do you need me to do the velo slap?’ He’s like, ‘Yes, that was terrible.’ We’ve done that ever since.”
The two-handed smack—landing on the meaty part of Varland’s upper back—has become his sendoff to the highest-leverage outs. Johnson describes the effect with the bluntness of a man who’s watched it happen up close: “It gets the hands pretty good – it lights me up so it can’t feel great for him.”
It’s a close enough match to the job description that Toronto’s bullpen has largely treated Varland like a de facto closer. Still, the cleaner picture is that the Blue Jays want him for the late-game assignments they expect to be most difficult, whether that’s the ninth inning or something earlier.
That flexibility showed up on May 27, when Varland handled the eighth and Tyler Rogers worked the ninth in a 2-1 win over the Miami Marlins.
The manager’s thinking starts with the idea that leverage is the job, not the inning. John Schneider said his team checks the “highest leverage spot of the game” and asks how often Varland gets slotted there. “My process when we check our work. it’s how often did you have your top choice in the highest leverage spot of the game. ” Schneider said. “It doesn’t always work out that way. There are roles to fill through a little bit. But if you’re hitting a really good pocket with your best reliever at the highest part of the game. usually the outcome is pretty good.”.
Varland’s numbers back up the trust. Based on leverage index—where 1.0 is average—his usage rates at 1.92. topping the Blue Jays outside a pair of small-sample size anomalies. Rogers checks in at 1.49. Jeff Hoffman at 1.42. Braydon Fisher at 1.36. and Mason Fluharty at 1.11. painting a clear picture of Toronto’s “circle of trust.”.
So far this season, Varland’s run has been the kind of dominance that changes how a bullpen gets managed. Through 32 games, the 28-year-old has posted a 0.50 ERA and a WHIP of 0.981 while striking out 46 batters across 35.2 innings. His fWAR stands at 1.7. tied with Cade Smith. and just a tick behind Mason Miller’s 1.8 for the lead among big-league relievers.
That production feeds into the stakes around new awards. Varland’s profile puts him in the conversation for the American League side of the Baseball Writers’ Association of America’s Reliever of the Year awards, which will be voted on for the first time in 2026.
It also sheds light on what wins those kinds of honors. The ninth inning matters because it’s where closers tend to accumulate saves. but Schneider argued the most valuable reliever isn’t always the one who simply collects the easiest save opportunities. “There is something about pitching the ninth inning. you have to have the head space to to do it. whether it’s three runs or whether it’s one run. ” Schneider said. “But I think the reliever that comes in for the highest leverage spot of the game most consistently is probably your most valuable reliever.”.
Walker, Toronto’s longtime pitching coach, agreed on the mental difficulty. “it’s mentally more difficult,” he said of the ninth inning. “I still think the leverage index is huge.”
Walker added that the rest of the bullpen picture should account for relievers who can do more than protect one inning. “Guys that can go multi-inning in high-leverage situations. not just for a save. it could be the seventh or eighth inning. Guys should be rewarded. as well. for coming into a jam. getting out of it and going back out. with what that does (for a team’s chances of winning a game) and how tough that is mentally. physically. … There are some closers that won’t do that.”.
Varland’s role seems to match the version Walker wants to reward. Schneider, with an obvious bias, was direct about what he’d vote for. “I would vote for Louis. It’s like, OK, are you going to close?. Great, you can do that. Are you going to pitch the eighth inning against this part of lineup that we want you to face?. Great, you can do that. Can you do it again the next day in a different role?. Great. Can you strike a guy out, righties and lefties?. Great. He’s what you’re shooting for.”.
His save totals also reflect a bullpen that has shifted him around. Because his late start getting ninth-inning assignments with Hoffman handling the role at the beginning of the season. Varland is tied for 10th in the majors with 11 saves. Cleveland’s Cade Smith leads at 21. Tampa’s Bryan Baker and San Diego’s Mason Miller follow next at 18.
Even with all the high-leverage discussion, Varland’s mindset is strikingly simple. He said “everybody in a bullpen wants to close games,” then described his varied usage as a “shut-up-and-pitch-when you’re told mentality.”
“All the other stuff is kind of noise,” he said. “so it’s just doing what you’re told and believing in it. If you believe in it and you do it, then things should work out.”
One place where those adjustments show up is how he’s handled left-handed hitters. Varland’s numbers against them have shifted sharply since Toronto got him—dropping from .254/.290/.426 a year ago to .200/.257/.246 so far.
Part of that change is tied to an improved changeup. Varland said it was thrown only five per cent of the time to lefty hitters in 2025, but is up to 16 per cent usage this season. “has made a good difference,” he said. “I think that’s really stepped my game up.”
What hasn’t changed is the insistence on the velo slap on his way out to the mound.
Varland traced the practice back to the COVID year of 2020. He said it was during that summer. after he became a 15th round pick by the Twins in 2019 and spent the summer training with no minor-league season. “I used to do it when I was doing velo sessions, trying to chase velo. After COVID I didn’t do it,” he said. “It’s supposed to spike some adrenaline, wake you up, get you kind of ready, I guess.”.
At spring training last year, he restarted the ritual as a joke—then kept it. “I started to do it again just as a joke. Then it turned out I liked it, so then we just kind of kept doing it.”
Justin Topa, Varland’s teammate with the Twins last year and now pitching at triple-A Buffalo in the Blue Jays system, remembered how the bullpen accepted it. Topa said Colby Suggs, the Twins bullpen coach at the time, “let him have it one of the days, he pitched well and then it kind of stuck.”
Topa is candid about his own preferences. saying he’s “never been a big velo slap guy. ” but added that Varland’s execution kept rolling. “But. Louis. I don’t know if he was superstitious after having it go well the first time. but he kept rolling with it and it definitely amps him up. It’s fun to see somebody get in that zone and go out there and dominate.”.
Toronto’s adoption, though, came with early bumps—and a quick lesson in how to handle it correctly.
Varland insisted he wants the slaps delivered properly, with “the slappers really let it rip.” The first attempt with the Blue Jays didn’t go well as Andreopoulos “did a terrible job, so he got fired right away.”
Johnson ended up being pulled back in. Varland said he “wasn’t going to bring it back until (Johnson) was like. ‘You want to keep doing it?’ So I’m like. yeah. I might as well. ” adding that he told Johnson to slap him “as hard as he can. ” while also admitting there’s a boundary. “I think he still holds back. I can’t break a rib doing it. That’d be a big problem. So, there’s kind of like a balance to that.”.
Johnson, for his part, sheepishly said he doesn’t give the slap a full go and tries to keep it from being too direct. “you want it to be fingers to the palm so it’s not full impact,” Johnson said.
The pushback if he didn’t go hard enough didn’t come from coaches—it came from a teammate who also arrived from Minnesota in the same July 31 trade. Varland said that if he had a rough outing, Ty France would come and blame him. “You’re not hitting him hard enough, you’ve got to hit him harder,” Varland said France told him. France, Varland added, “would stay on me to make sure that I did. He’s like, ‘My guy is getting soft, you’ve got to go harder.’”.
Schneider only really noticed the ritual once it became impossible to ignore.
He said he didn’t see it until Game 1 of the American League Division Series. when Varland entered with the bases loaded and two out and struck out Giancarlo Stanton to protect a 2-1 lead. “It fits him,” Schneider said. “It’s the life of a reliever where it kind of wakes you up a little bit. It’s not as crazy as the dude (Tyler) Phillips for Miami who slaps himself in the face. But relievers are just weird. I kind of like it actually. Graham has kind of mastered it, too, where he knows exactly like how down to go so he’s not hurt. It’s pretty funny that it’s Graham hitting Louis. They’re both like the most mild-mannered guys.”.
The routine ends when it’s time to take the ball.
Varland believes in the energy surge, even if he admits the mechanism might not be measurable. “More people should do it,” he said. “It could be a placebo, but that’s the idea behind it.”
Louis Varland Toronto Blue Jays bullpen ace velo slap leverage index saves John Schneider Pete Walker Alex Andreopoulos Tyler Rogers Miami Marlins Minnesota Twins Cade Smith Mason Miller Bryan Baker Reliever of the Year Baseball Writers' Association of America