​When the Blue Jays sent Trevor Richards to the Twins at the 2024 trade deadline, the return was an infielder who’d signed a way-under-slot deal in the sixth round of the prior year’s draft, a Penn State product named Jay Harry. Baseball America ranked him 426th among draft-eligible prospects that year and then promptly moved on, seemingly forgetting him entirely. After the deal, Fangraphs pegged him as the 87th-best prospect traded at the deadline and described his likely peak as “a utility guy for a weak Double-A team.” Harsh, perhaps, but not an unreasonable summation of his then-current showing: his OPS last season, spread across A+ and AA, opened with a five-something figure. I’m writing about him now because, obviously, things have improved. They’ve improved enough to vault him into a .327/.368/.591 line spanning the New Hampshire and Buffalo affiliates, placing him among the upper 40 or so hitters in the higher minors this season.
So what changed? Harry was always an ultra-contact-oriented hitter in college, his swing built to poke line drives through the infield. That approach carried into his first pro season after the draft, as evidenced by a 6.8% strikeout rate in A ball, yet he failed to produce meaningful impact. His contact rate dipped from 85% in college to 76% during his 2024 Twins tenure, and then to 71% after the trade to the Blue Jays. Concurrently, he displayed a modicum of game power—rising from a single home run in 129 plate appearances in his draft year to 12 in 448 in 2024. Last year found him squeezed between two extremes, bringing his contact back to 77% but losing most of his power. In 2026, his contact rate sits at 77% once more, but the power production returns—and then some.
Typically, when a left-handed hitter climbs the hill in New Hampshire, you might chalk some of that power spike up to the park’s factors. But there are two caveats: a) he produced poorly in the same park last season, and b) he has hit even better since moving up to Buffalo. On video, you can trace a subtle swing evolution over the last three years: from a very upright setup with almost no hand load and a bat starting upright in 2024, to a slightly deeper load and more angle in 2025. In 2026, his swing has shifted back toward that 2024 profile—still upright, with his hands starting out front to give him a very short path to the ball. These adjustments are subtle, and there’s no clear evidence that he’s undergone a dramatic, new-swing overhaul.
There are a few other notable changes. First, he’s simply swinging more often. He’s always been aggressive, but his 59.5% swing rate this season ranks among the league’s highest, and would place him in the majors’ top five. That aggressiveness has come at the expense of walks, even though his strikeout rate hasn’t changed much. He’s also pulling the ball far less often—39% of the time, down from a high 55–56% in the previous two seasons. Ordinarily, that would be expected to temper power production, although in Harry’s case the increased contact and adjusted approach have helped offset the drop. All told, his 2026 season reflects a player who has refined his approach, reined in some of the swing-and-miss tendencies, and found a pathway to genuine power while maintaining a high contact rate.