TORONTO — A couple hours before Davis Schneider sent a high fastball over the wall for his 11th home run of the 2025 season, he ate a pre-game bowl of what his Toronto Blue Jays teammate Myles Straw calls “nasty soup.” The ingredients were Reese’s Pieces, blackberries, protein powder and chocolate milk, all stirred together. “I tell him all the time that you couldn’t pay me a lot of money to eat what he eats,” Straw says, crinkling his nose. “It’s hard to watch.”
Daulton Varsho couldn’t agree more. The centre fielder can’t believe what Schneider mixes with tuna, which includes everything but the kitchen sink and, to Varsho’s nose, “smells disgusting.”
This is the pre-game nutrition that fuels the moustachioed utilityman on Toronto’s roster whose appetite is as unique as his role on the team. Schneider has been a fan favourite ever since an early rookie campaign saw him put up numbers at the plate historic enough to earn himself the nickname “Babe Schneider.” But since he’s settled back down to earth, he’s owning his role on a very deep American League-leading club that has spent the season handling injuries and jockeying players like him between various positions. Toronto’s pick at 849thoverall in the 2017 draft, Schneider has played left field, second base, and third (for one game) this season, and been called on lately to pinch-hit against lefties, adding rare and valuable lineup flexibility that has been a key to Toronto’s success. And in the process he’s shown a willingness to do whatever his team needs to get a win.
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“I’m sure if you ask him to play short or centre field, he would want to,” says George Springer. “I think everything he does, he does 100 per cent. And that’s awesome. He kind of exemplifies everything that we need out of a player.”
Schneider considers himself “kind of a journeyman” as a player, and the 26-year-old believes most other teams would’ve released him before he made the big leagues. He had stretches when he didn’t play much in the minors, and saw players with better stats let go by their teams. “But the Blue Jays stuck with me,” Schneider says, sitting in the team’s dugout on a recent sunny afternoon, and he in turn has worked to stick with the Blue Jays.
“I don’t have that many at-bats, but there’s always got to be that guy on the team that plays whenever he can — and I love playing for this team,” Schneider says. “So, I’ve always got to be ready to go.”
Schneider is one of a cast of Blue Jays who is always ready but doesn’t always go. As a player called upon to deliver at any given moment, he routinely faces one of the toughest tasks in baseball, but one that could prove hugely important for his team down the stretch and beyond. Being in and out of the lineup isn’t for the faint of heart. Just ask anyone who’s done it.
“I’ve been in that situation where you don’t play every day and you’re kind of thrown into the fire once or twice a week, and it’s really, really difficult,” says infielder Ernie Clement, who points to Toronto’s deep roster as the reason Schneider isn’t regularly in the lineup. “He could easily be in there every day playing left or second, and right now we need him to hit his lefties and play a couple times a week and be ready to go. But he always seems to be ready to play and it’s really valuable when you have a player who can do that, because it’s not easy.”
“It’s hard to prepare because you’re preparing for a lot of guys in the bullpen, so you have to be ready whenever your name is called,” Varsho adds. “That, for him, can be any time, any night. It’s really hard to do. Pinch hitting is literally the toughest thing to do in our sport, and he does a really good job at it.”
Schneider is averaging 4.48 pitches per plate appearance, which means he works his at-bats longer than Marcell Ozuna (4.45) and Mike Trout (4.45), MLB’s top qualified hitters in the category. And only seven qualified hitters have a higher walk rate than Schneider’s 14.7 per cent. “The at-bat that he always has is very competitive,” says Blue Jays hitting coach, David Popkins. “It’s either a lot of pitches or something that he hits really hard. Even when he strikes out, it’s usually a 3-2 count. And those at-bats are contagious.
“I think this team has shown that anybody can be a hero any night. This hasn’t been a team that’s relied on any one person to carry us for an extended period of time,” Popkins adds. “He’s shown that, and I think he can definitely do that again. He’s had games that he has literally won for us with his at-bats and his swing.”
Schneider having a time in the dugout after hitting a two-run dinger against the Yankees in early July. (Photo by Sammy Kogan/CP)
Schneider has also been winning over fans of Canada’s team since his first game in August 2023, when he became just the fourth Blue Jay to hit a home run in his debut big league at-bat. (Schneider then tied the MLB record with nine hits in his first three games, and carried a ridiculous, MLB best-ever 1.315 OPS through his first 25.)
“The start he got off to in 2023, it was historic. I think that just gives something for people to grasp onto, almost like a little bit of a folk hero,” says John Schneider, the Blue Jays’ manager, who’s been asked too many times if he’s related to Schneider the player (that’s a no). “This is a really likeable team and he’s one of the driving forces behind it. He’s a really likeable guy, and he is about as blue-collar, average Joe-looking as you can get.”
It was back in 2023 that Schneider first saw fans wearing a replica of his moustache on the jumbotron at the Rogers Centre, “mostly middle-aged women and kids,” he says. “Fans love the moustache a little more than I thought they would.” Credit is due to one of the team’s trainers, Voon Chong, who has voluntarily taken on the role of trimming Schneider’s “nasty soup” strainer. “He really likes it,” Schneider says.
“It’s the funniest thing ever when you get the older women in the stands who are wearing their moustaches to the game,” says Clement, who’s also Schneider’s roommate. “That’s my favourite thing.”
Varsho thinks Schneider’s moustache took off because the movie Top Gun: Maverick came out the year before, also featuring a solid moustache or two. “Their timing was kind of aligned,” Varsho says, with Schneider and one of the movie’s stars, actor Miles Teller.
Straw has observed that while walking around the city with Schneider, “there’s not a lot of people that don’t recognize him.” He chalks that up to the following factors: “The moustache, he hits bombs and has good aura.” Clement ranks Schneider the third-most recognized Blue Jays player, behind only Vladdy and Bo, who don’t even need second names. Springer has this to say about Schneider: “He’s one of a kind.”
All the attention remains a shock to the Blue Jay with the boldest moustache, however. “I’m just a regular dude,” Schneider says, with a shrug. “I still live with my parents.”
He’s not kidding, at least during the off-season. The address he returns to every winter is his parents’ place in the little town of Berlin, New Jersey, where every one of the fewer than 8,000 residents knows everyone else. Schneider still sleeps in his childhood basement bedroom. “But I’m going to move out eventually,” he says “so….” Maybe even this off-season. “I love going back home. I hate going on vacations in off-seasons. My vacation is being home around my childhood friends, my dog and my family.”
Schneider brings all of this up to explain further why he remains flummoxed about the attention that surrounds him in Toronto. “I don’t drive a crazy car or wear expensive things or anything like that. I wear sweatpants — and jeans, once in a while,” he says. “I’m a regular guy from a small town, and I guess people enjoy that about me.”
It’s only since June, however, that Blue Jays fans have been able to see Schneider live and in action semi-regularly. After a tough start at the plate, in mid-April he was optioned to the Triple-A Bisons, then called back up after an injury to Varsho. Schneider says the demotion was necessary to get more at-bats and return to what makes him a difficult out at the plate.
He feels he’s at his best when he’s not thinking about swing mechanics. He emulates the batting stances of the game’s big stars, like Alex Rodriguez most recently, as well as Aaron Judge and Will Smith, not only because it’s funny but because it occupies his mind. “When you think about your swing in baseball, I feel you’re going to get yourself into trouble,” Schneider says. “If I’m thinking about my stance, where am I holding my hands, I kind of get my mind focused on that and then I just react at that point — and baseball is all about that reaction.”
Schneider, suiting up at second base, makes a play to first against the Yankees. (Photo by Thomas Skrlj/CP)
Whether Schneider is called upon to react in any more big moments this season remains to be seen. Down the stretch, the Blue Jays will rely on the approach that got them to the top of the American League, drawing from a deep roster that includes players who don’t play every day. Manager Schneider says his utility player with the same last name understands that role better than ever.
“Nothing has been handed to him — he’s been almost released a couple times, he’s worked his ass off to get here. And what I appreciate this year, after starting slow and having kind of an up-and-down year last year, he’s really matured,” the manager says, pointing to a 3-2 pitch Schneider likely would’ve swung at last year, which he took for a ball to earn a walk against Houston earlier this month, helping tee-up an eventual walk-off win for the Blue Jays. “I think he’s understood that he’s really good at certain things and he’s kind of leaned into that, and that’s what you want everyone to do.”
When Schneider isn’t getting starts or pinch-hitting, he’s doing everything he can to gear up for his next opportunity.
“I picture that moment all the time in my head. I know my role, so I’m going to have to be prepared whenever my name is called,” he says. “I’ve just got to be ready for it whether that’s practicing for that moment or mentally just making sure I’m in the right state of mind. That moment’s going to come, whether that’s tonight or in the playoffs.”
The playoff moments, in particular, he has pictured a lot.
“All the time,” Schneider says. “Game 7 of the World Series, bases loaded, two outs, 3-2 count. As a kid you always dream about that moment. You’re playing wiffle ball in your backyard, and you picture it in your head. As a 26-year-old, I still picture that moment. It might not ever come, but you’ve always got to picture it.
“I never thought I’d ever make it to the Big Leagues, but you always picture it. I never thought I’d hit a home run in my first Big League at-bat, but that moment, it might come and you’ve just got to be ready for it.”
On this sunny September afternoon, Schneider looks out at the open field and the open dome in front of him ahead of a Blue Jays win.
“It still doesn’t really feel real that I’m here,” he says. “I swear, it doesn’t.”
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