Is it Possible We Still Haven’t Seen the Best Version of Vladdy?

When Vladimir Guerrero Jr. stepped into the batters box on April 26th, 2019 for his first MLB at-bat, expectations were already at astronomical levels. The consensus number one prospect in baseball, Guerrero speedran his way through the minor leagues putting up a combined 191 wRC+ combined between Double- and Triple-A at the tender age of 19 with a microscopic 9% strikeout rate.

Guerrero wasn’t just another top prospect, he was a prodigy. Son of a former Hall of Hamer, and the first ever prospect to receive an 80-grade hit tool by MLB Pipeline. At a time where the Toronto Blue Jays were in the midst of their rebuild looking to show off their future cornerstone, Vladimir Guerrero Jr. was exactly what they, and their fans needed.

Fast forward to 2026 and Vladdy has now amassed seven big league seasons, accumulating 975 games. In that time he’s produced a .288/.365/.495 slashline, 185 homers, 591 RBI, with a career 137 wRC+ and 20.3 fWAR. His peak years coming in 2021 and 2024, Vladdy’s mixed in a couple uneven seasons in there as well, with 2023 sticking out like a sore thumb.

Overall though, he’s been 37% better than league average over his career. His true talent is better than that though, and there’s reason to believe his truly peak seasons are still to come.

Let’s dive in to the numbers.

Vladdy’s Batted Ball Profile

This is an area where Guerrero’s always been at the tip-top of all leaderboards. Only a handful of players hit the ball harder, swing the bat harder, and have as good of plate skills than he does. His expected stats always tell the story of a top-five hitter in baseball, yet he’s only achieved that mark twice in his career.

For the purposes of this exercise we’re going to compare Guerrero alongside the top 10 hitters in baseball sorted by wRC+ since the beginning of the 2023 season. We didn’t want to stray too many years back but wanted to include 2023 because of his struggles to paint a more fair picture of where he sits among the elite.

Top 10 hitters by wRC+ since 2023	BB%	K%	OBP	OPS	wOBA	xwOBA	GB%	wRC+
Aaron Judge	18.7	25.0	.445	1.119	.457	.469	31.8	203
Shohei Ohtani	13.7	23.9	.397	1.037	.427	.433	38.9	177
Juan Soto	18.2	18.0	.408	.946	.402	.433	46.4	164
Yordan Alvarez	12.5	16.5	.394	.947	.397	.420	33.9	161
Ronald Acuña Jr	13.0	17.5	.406	.942	.403	.424	49.1	158
Corey Seager	10.6	17.9	.372	.916	.384	.401	41.6	152
Kyle Tucker	13.9	14.5	.380	.892	.379	.384	34.7	147
Freddie Freeman	10.5	17.5	.386	.904	.383	.376	38.1	146
Ketel Marte	11.2	16.7	.368	.887	.377	.374	44.5	140
Vladimir Guerrero Jr	10.7	14.1	.374	.859	.368	.393	47.0	140

What jumps out immediately is that Guerrero owns the lowest strikeout rate of this entire group. His bat-to-ball skills rival any hitter in baseball. His xwOBA is seventh best, ahead of Marte, Freeman, and Tucker. The other metric that stands out? The 47% groundball rate, second only to Ronald Acuña Jr. If there’s a single data point that helps explain why Guerrero hasn’t consistently been able to each his ceiling, it’s exactly that.

Swing path/attack angles

Now we’re getting deep into the weeds.

If you’ve followed the Blue Jays ad nauseum for the past few years, chances are at some point you’ve heard about Guerrero’s issues with launch angle. Stemming from his hitting mechanics, mainly a timing issue with his lower half, he hasn’t been able to find that sweet spot to be able to stay consistently on time with his setup.

Now we’re going to go on a bit of an expedition. Below are five snippets of Guerrero, ordered chronologically from early 2023-present 2025. I’ll give you a hint, watch the feet placement, and the barrel tip. Two extremely subtle parts of his pre-pitch setup that go a long ways into determining where he’s at from a timing perspective.

First clip: April 2023, second clip: August 2023, third clip: April 2024, fourth clip: July 2024, fifth clip: June 2025

April 2023 wRC+: 147

August 2023 wRC+: 98

April 2024 wRC+: 100

July 2024 wRC+: 203

June 2025 wRC+: 151

What’s the common denominator? When Vladdy’s tipping that barrel, good things happen. When he doesn’t? He struggles.

Now, onto the nitty gritty about Guerrero’s attack angles. Baseball Savant somewhat recently brought us data plots on to be able to quantify these assumptions. Something that wasn’t able to be measured with factual evidence, now is. And the data matched what we already knew, Guerrero’s bat path is the *worst* in Major League Baseball.

For those who aren’t familiar, Attack angle measures the vertical angle at which the bat’s barrel is moving upward or downward at the moment of contact, relative to the ground. A positive angle means the bat is moving up, a negative angle means down, and an optimal range (5°–20°) allows hitters to match the downward path of pitches to maximize line drives and home runs. 

In Vladdy’s case, his attack angle is 1°, the worst mark in all of baseball amongst qualified hitters. To put it in simpler terms, any pitch in the lower quadrant is getting pounded straight into the ground by Guerrero.

Compounding the issue is that Guerrero has the lowest % of his swings resulting in the ideal attack angle (30.6%) which is basically a form of self sabotage when you think about it. His elite exit velocities and barrel rates are going to waste when the majority of that contact is being put straight into the dirt.

Again, this comes back to Vladdy’s timing mechanism at the plate; which we’ll continue to hammer home until there’s a more permanent solution to an issue that’s plagued the first baseman since he entered the league. Tilt that barrel, Vladdy!

Reason for optimism?

Before we dive into this segment, let me preface this by saying that you should never use a singular postseason run worth of data to form any strong opinions. The sample size is simply too small, and there’s an extreme amount of randomness and variance.

However, it’s still the most pressure packed environment a player will ever play baseball games in, and against the best competition to boot.

In Guerrero’s case we’re talking about an 18-game/89-plate appearance sample size during the Blue Jays’ World Series run this past year that ended in gutting fashion. Prior the ALDS, they had a five-day break between the last game of the regular season and Game 1 vs the Yankees. Vladdy had just finished up an extremely poor end to his year (31 wRC+ in his final 75 plate appearances). He attributed injuries and poor mechanics to this, and used the 5 days to regroup and recharge.

The results after, speak for themselves.

Vladimir Guerrero Jr. in 2025	Groundball%	Flyball%	Launch Angle	xwOBA	wRC+
Regular Season	46.5	32.3	7.8	.384	137
Postseason	40.3	38.8	9.3	.462	241

A 6% reduction in groundball rate, a 6% increase in flyball rate, which in return leads to a 1.5° increase in launch angle, and Guerrero’s wRC+ jumps 104 points. Obviously this isn’t an exact science, you can’t replicate this level of production over the course of 162 games but the point is made.

If Vladimir Guerrero Jr. can make even incremental improvements with his swing path and attack angles, which stem directly from his lower half mechanics and bat tilt, then we could easily see a career season from the Blue Jays first baseman, one that vaults him in the top 3-5 hitters in all of baseball on a consistent and annual basis.