vladimir guerrero.

Vladdy notches his 1st career grand slam. This tshirt was made for him by a friend.
Translator Tito LeBron tells me it says “the man with power.” pic.twitter.com/dltXme8zsp

— Hazel Mae (@thehazelmae) July 21, 2019

Possible that he presses a bit at home:

Home - 5 HR, .256/.337/.430
Away - 10 HR, .308/.374/.522

Rogers is pretty neutral as a park.

Last 30 games for Vlad Guerrero Jr.
.380/.446/.676, 13 BB, 17K, 7 HR, 1.122 OPS#BlueJays

— Ben Nicholson-Smith (@bnicholsonsmith) August 23, 2019

I thought the dome was a hitters park?

Dude has been on fire since Bichette came up.

Baseball Reference has:

Multi-year: Batting - 97, Pitching - 98
One-year: Batting - 100, Pitching - 101

Seems pretty neutral...but I might not be interpreting that right.

he seems to have figured out how to hit at home - 267 wRC+, .563 wOBA, 1.389 OPS!!

when will he receive the clemenza seal of approval tho

Hey--I'm happy! My issue all along was his seeming indifference to his weight. He did something about it, came back in much better shape, and--no coincidence, surely--he's the hitter we'd heard so much about.

i'm starting to think this guy might be good

it's weird, just knowing a guy by his stats. i've barely seen him play. not at all this year, not last year, only a bit during 2019. he's graded at 80/80 on raw power, but then you'd look at his minor league stats and see 13 HRs in 2017, 20 or so in 2018, ok. but not he's on pace for 45+ this year, while hitting .333, on base 44% of the time. O_O OK!

sorry, weird typos. i guess it's just cool to see him realize his power potential. it probably also helps, in a way, to be swinging against guys throwing 95+. solid contact against fast throwers = longballs

also, theoretically there's this thing with athletes "filling" out in their early 20s and getting stronger. personally, i have found that my body is like a coughed bird skeleton, but these are pro athletes so

maybe i’m cynical but i always chalked up the “filling out” to young athletes meeting “trainers” with very specific cutting edge uh nutritional regimes that dance on the edge of legality

it makes sense to be cynical when the words "a physical specimen" come up so often in baseball writing

“a UCLA product”

Vlad had actually dropped weight going into the season. he showed up last year a little heavier and didn't perform like people had hoped so there was some pressure there.
i think it helped his fielding a lot – but with his hitting he's just stopped chasing every other pitch. i think he was way too aggressive when he came up and was wiffing on too many major league caliber pitches.
i also think moving to 1B helped, kinda like with encarnacion. i feel like playing a position you are better suited for seems to make the hitting part easier.

A Triple Crown for Vlad is again not entirely out of reach. (It seemed so a few weeks ago). He's regained the lead in BA, is three HR behind Ohtani and five RBI behind Abreu. He's got 24 games to make that up.

If it ever happened, a Triple Crown vs. Ohtani would be a great MVP story.

ohtani has been awful at the plate for the past month, I don’t think the MVP is completely wrapped up yet

Yesterday Posnanski said it is, unanimous even, but I agree, Vlad still has a shot.

Assuming he doesn't get the Triple Crown, though, he'd probably have to hit lights out in some key games, and the Jays would probably have to make the playoffs to sway some voters. (Not looking to open up that argument, but I suspect it still factors in if the vote is close.)

Triple Crown stuff:

https://www.mlb.com/news/vladimir-guerrero-jr-triple-crown-watch-2021

Not only is Guerrero contending for an AL Triple Crown, but he also has an opportunity to become the first player in 65 years (since Mickey Mantle in 1956) to lead both the AL and NL in all three categories.

• Batting average: second in MLB (two points behind Trea Turner)
• Home runs: tied for second in MLB (one behind Shohei Ohtani)
• RBIs: fourth in MLB (four behind José Abreu and Salvador Perez)

Should a mod change the name to “vladimir guerreros.”?!

vladimirs guerrero imo

Vladimi

There is only ONE Vladimir Guerreros thread

Important Vladimir Guerreros.

Home runs:
1. Vladimir Guerrero Jr. -- 44
2. Shohei Ohtani -- 44
3. Salvador Perez -- 42

Batting average:
1. Vladimir Guerrero Jr. -- .319
2. Yuli Gurriel -- .315
3. Michael Brantley -- .315

RBIs:
1. José Abreu -- 107
2. Salvador Perez -- 105
T-3. Vladimir Guerrero Jr. -- 102
T-3. Rafael Devers -- 102
T-3. Teoscar Hernández -- 102

back off, teoscar

Baseball Reference WAR says two things: that one of Vladimir Guerrero's teammates was actually more valuable than Vlad was, and (2) that Carlos Correa was the best defensive player in the AL. I believe ONE of these conclusions. The other one is bat shit crazy.

— Bill James Online (@billjamesonline) October 6, 2021

Doubt he'd have such strong feelings on Correa's defensive value.

lol Vladdy hit this 427 feet pic.twitter.com/GZef4HU0y1

— Andrew Mearns (@MearnsPSA) April 14, 2022

Blood-Stained Hand of the Vlad

The Jays radio guys were saying how remarkably similar father and son are statistically to this point in their careers (404 games going into play today).

Senior: .312/.365/.562, 87 HR, 267 RBI

Junior: .284/.364/.513, 87 HR, 250 RBI

Seeing as Sr.'s numbers were compiled from 1996 into 2000--big hitting years--you'd have to adjust those slash stats downward, so yeah, probably pretty close. As is, unadjusted, dead on in HR and OBP.

(Sr.'s OPS+ through the completion of the 2000 season--i.e., to his 418th GP, is 146; Jr.'s is presently 136.)

They also pointed out Jr is doing this about two years younger!!

One of Posnanski's shareable posts:

https://joeposnanski.substack.com/p/ten-who-missed-no-10-vladimir-guerrero?r=1jtu0&s=r&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=email

Yes, it is much, much, much too early to be talking about Vladimir Guerrero Jr. and the Hall of Fame. As I write these words, he’s only 23 years old and has played fewer than 400 big-league games. But maybe it’s not too early to dream about something that seems impossible — a father and a son both ending up in the Baseball Hall of Fame...But even cooler — with all due respect to the Griffeys and Bondses, the Alous and Boones, Alomars and Witts, Fielders and Bells and Biggios and Bichettes — I think the Guerreros are already the most fun father-son duo in baseball history.

<3

Asked in NY about off-season comments in which he said he’d never sign with the Yankees, “not even dead,” Vlad Guerrero Jr. doubled down, saying he has personal/family reasons for preferring not to play for the Yankees and would “never” change his mind

— Ben Nicholson-Smith (@bnicholsonsmith) April 21, 2023

BEST SHAPE OF HIS CAREER

Vladimir Guerrero Jr. Looks incredible holy shit pic.twitter.com/XpPUb0k8Xm

— Gate 14 Podcast (@Gate14Pod) February 9, 2024

Looks v trim fwiw

The man absolutely has to pop-off. It's in the stars

.172/.276/.314. (Not his father's Sunday-beer-league line.)

I feel like I like Vladdy more than you do, and it’s still very early! Took a long at his unqualified (cos it’s early) 24 statcast numbers.

https://i.postimg.cc/KYWyN08j/IMG-8699.jpg

Is he pressing? He’s smoking the ball when he’s making contact and he’s walking a lot so his eye’s still great and the chase rate is too but he’s striking out well above his normal rate - he’s not normally a high strikeout guy. The sweet spot % (basically hitting the ball with a good launch angle that gets it off the ground and more likely to find grass rather than a glove) makes me think he’s missing his spots because he’s behind and maybe it’s a timing issue?

Assuming I’ve understood xwOBA correctly (I will welcome correction cos expected stats & me are not a happy match), he’s making good quality contact when he does make contact, maybe he’s just unlucky?

https://www.mlb.com/glossary/statcast/expected-woba

You probably do at this point--the closer you are, the more exasperating he can be. It was the same last year: all his advanced metrics suggested he was hitting in bad luck. All year we heard that. I'm like Jeff Blair (local radio guy) at this point: enough. (Directing that at Vlad, not you.) The thing that really changed me with regards to Vlad was learning how dispropotionately his big year was driven by those minor-league parks.

He's definitely pressing. And I'm sure he's got a few dozen people whispering in his ear what he needs to do, from his father on down, and they're all telling him different things.