Vladimir Guerrero Jr.’s struggles hinting at uncertain future with Blue Jays

First baseman Vladimir Guerrero Jr., the 2021 American League MVP runner-up and this year’s MLB The Show cover athlete, flat-out dropped the throw. The ball came in at chest height, no more than 18 inches off the center line of Guerrero’s body, yet it clanked off his glove and bounced away. A run scored on the play, Bobby Witt Jr. followed with a two-run double and just like that, a win turned into a loss for the Blue Jays.

One play doesn’t make a game or a season, but this one was emblematic of a much larger problem. The Blue Jays have been waiting two-and-a-half years now for the same version of the 22-year-old Guerrero who lit the league on fire to return. Instead, he’s slowly, yet steadily declined, becoming almost unrecognizable by age 25. Now, Toronto is nearing the deadline to make a decision about Guerrero’s future, with no idea if they’ll ever see the best version of him come back.

Vladimir Guerrero Jr.’s statistical decline

In that magical 2021 season, in which Vladito crushed 48 home runs to lead the majors, it seemed like the Blue Jays had a complete offensive player on their hands. Guerrero led the American League in on-base percentage, slugging, OPS, OPS+ and total bases.

Sure, the Jays played over half their season in a homer-happy minor league park, but Guerrero still had an .875 OPS on the road. All signs were pointing to a Hall of Fame-type career just getting off the ground.

Since then, Guerrero’s OPS+ has shrunk to 133 in 2022, 117 in 2023 and now 102 in his 24 games in 2024. Sure, it’s early in the new season, but this seems more like a continuation of a trend than a slow start. Guerrero’s barrel rate, wOBA and expected batting average are all at their lowest point since 2020. He’s got a .348 slugging percentage, three points behind light-hitting Giants shortstop Nick Ahmed. And he has just one extra-base hit in his last 51 plate appearances.

Not only is Vladito not a superstar right now, he’s hurting the team. X (formerly Twitter) user EJNave pointed out that since September 2, 2022 (very arbitrary date, but a large sample nonetheless), Guerrero has the eighth-worst fWAR among all players with at least 800 plate appearances. The Blue Jays have rolled Guerrero out every day batting high in the order and playing bad first base defense because they hoped his bat would carry the team. It’s been decent at best, and that’s a net negative when you factor in opportunity.

Why Blue Jays can’t afford Guerrero to be average

Even if you consider this early part of the season for Guerrero a slump rather than the norm, it would take an astronomical rebound to get back to the place where the Blue Jays need him to be. Tuesday’s mental lapse on defense was a reminder that Toronto needs Guerrero to be a dominant force guiding them to wins. His offensive production was already falling short, so it makes the pain much sharper when a momentary lapse outright loses them a game.

And if that wasn’t bad enough, the Blue Jays have done far too much of their planning to this point centered around the idea that Guerrero was the young star that could anchor their lineup.

Sure, they fell just short in their pursuit of Shohei Ohtani, but there have been other superstars available via free agency and the trade market the past few off-seasons that the Jays barely batted an eyelash at. They even had 2023 World Series champ Marcus Semien on their team that very same 2021 season and let him walk because his contract was going to be too expensive by the time Guerrero was up for an extension.

But as the time approaches for Guerrero to be eligible for that extension, it’s looking less and less like a certainty that he’ll get it in Toronto.

Vladimir Guerrero Jr.’s future with the Blue Jays

One of the best things you can have in baseball, or any sport for that matter, is a cost-controlled young star talent that allows you to spend more significant money elsewhere. Guerrero certainly was that in 2021, but he’s hardly cost-controlled anymore.

Even this season, with another year of team control ahead, Guerrero is making $19.9 million, the most by far that the Jays have ever had to hand out in arbitration. Between his and Bo Bichette’s pay increases, the Jays’ total payroll jumped by about $11 million in the offseason despite no long-term commitments to free agents. So if his contract has the team slightly hamstrung now, what happens when he demands $30 million annually?

And adding to the intrigue of the whole situation is the fact that if Guerrero isn’t going to sign an extension, we’ve seen in the cases of Mookie Betts, Juan Soto, Corbin Burnes and countless others that teams are far more willing to trade away the faces of their teams if they don’t think they can sign them long-term. So if the Blue Jays aren’t imminent World Series contenders, it’s entirely possible they could ship Guerrero off to a team that thinks they can restore his star quality.

It’s a real conundrum, one the Blue Jays certainly never expected to find themselves in. But although no one knows now where Guerrero’s future might be, it would behoove him to start hitting like his 2021 self again as soon as possible. But of course, that’s all he’s been trying to do for the last three seasons, and so far, he hasn’t had much luck.