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Blue Jays mid-term report card: Vladimir Guerrero

By Tom Dakers
/ new
Oakland Athletics v Toronto Blue Jays Photo by Vaughn Ridley/Getty Images

This ought to be fun...

Vladimir Guerrero has had an up-and-down season so far:

  • April: .885 OPS
  • May: .716 OPS
  • June: .809 OPS

It started well, but May and early June were particularly bad. In the last couple of weeks, things have improved.

We’ve seen players go through slumps before, but we still overreact. We’ve heard he should be sent down, traded, DFAed....all that stuff. When you know a player is good, maybe don’t jump the gun on conclusions?

Surprisingly enough, last year started much the same, good start, crappy May, June bounce back.

In all:

Standard Batting
Year Age G PA AB R H 2B 3B HR RBI SB CS BB SO BA OBP SLG OPS OPS+ GDP HBP SF IBB
2023 24 76 333 296 35 84 17 0 11 49 3 2 28 51 .284 .354 .453 .807 126 11 6 3 1
5 Yr 5 Yr 580 2494 2223 334 631 120 5 115 359 16 7 238 406 .284 .357 .498 .855 134 80 22 11 15
162 162 162 697 621 93 176 34 1 32 100 4 2 66 113 .284 .357 .498 .855 134 22 6 3 4
Provided by Baseball-Reference.com: View Original Table
Generated 6/26/2023.

His wRC+ is 125.

I keep being told he is no good with RISP, but he’s been good, hitting .319/.395/.514.

Then it is he’s bad in the clutch, but:

  • Late and close, he’s hitting .326/.346/.478.
  • RISP and 2 out: .464/.516/.821
  • High Leverage spots: .405/.482/.548

Now these are all small sample size stats, but often we tend to see what we want to see. Unfortunately, if you hit .300, you fail 7 times out of 10.

Defensively?

He’s made some spectacular plays, and then he’ll mess up an easy play. Advanced stats for first basemen don’t work all that well. But Fangraphs has him at a -1.5 UZR/150. Vlad’s made 4 errors.

I don’t believe he is a ‘Gold Glove’ type first baseman. And he makes a couple of plays that drive me crazy (ranging way off toward second base to field balls that the second baseman could have easily made the play on). But, all in, I think he’s a decent defensive first baseman.

Poll

For the first half, I’d give Vladimir Guerrero an

This poll is closed

  • 1%
    A
    (14 votes)
  • 13%
    B+
    (123 votes)
  • 32%
    B
    (302 votes)
  • 25%
    B-
    (237 votes)
  • 11%
    C+
    (106 votes)
  • 7%
    C
    (66 votes)
  • 4%
    C-
    (42 votes)
  • 1%
    D+
    (11 votes)
  • 0%
    D
    (7 votes)
  • 0%
    D-
    (1 vote)
  • 0%
    F
    (8 votes)
917 votes total Vote Now

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