Guess who’s back, back again, Vladdy’s back, tell a friend. After a slow start to the season, Vladmir Guerrero Jr. has picked things up and is headed to Texas for the All-Star game. This is the fourth consecutive trip to the midsummer classic for Guerrero, and the third time he’s been selected to be the starting first baseman.
While Vladdy has all the tools to be a perennial All-Star, he certainly wasn’t looking like one at the start of the season. In April, he hit only .219/.305/.324 with two homeruns, and fans were already starting to be worried. This is the guy that is expected to carry the franchise on his back and put up MVP calibre numbers like he did in 2021. But he hasn’t been able to put up said numbers since 2021, and that season is looking more and more like an anomaly. Furthermore, if Vladdy isn’t able to turn things around, you can’t help but start to wonder if he is going to be worth the mega contact extension that he covets.
However, following a lackluster April, Vladdy started to get going in May where he hit .357/.447/.469. The only blemish on his May was that he still wasn’t hitting for a lot of power, as he only had 5 doubles and 2 homeruns. While hitting for a high average is great, a player like Guerrero is expected to be a run producer, so he needs to hit for more power. No one is asking him to hit 62 homeruns like Aaron Judge, but Vlad should be able to hit close to 40 – something he hasn’t done since 2021, when he hit 48.
As the weather started getting hotter in June, so did Guerrero. He started elevating the ball and those hard-hit line-drives started to leave the ballpark. He slugged .607 in June with 8 homeruns and 25 RBI and looked a lot more like the Vladdy of 2021. This would be a 48-home run pace, which coincidently is the same number of homeruns he hit in the 2021 season.
It’s this recent resurgence that has propelled Vladdy to his fourth consecutive All-Star Game. This isn’t a case where an entire country stuffed the ballot box to get Vladdy in when he didn’t deserve it. While he did have an entire country voting for him, he most certainly deserved to go the All-Star Game. He leads all AL first basemen in hits, batting average, and on-base percentage, and is second in homeruns.
If Guerrero can keep this going for the remainder of the season, he will once again be looked at as one of the top players in the game, and prove that he deserves to be paid like one. He hits the ball harder than almost anyone else in baseball, so when he is able to get balls in the air, singles become doubles, and double become homeruns. It’s his ridiculous power that makes him so special and part of the reason why you can’t give up on his potential. There has been a lot of discussion recently about whether the Jays should trade him and start a rebuild, given that the team currently ranks last in the AL East. I think that would be a major mistake. What they should do is sign him to a long-term extension to make him a Blue Jay for his entire career, and continue to build around him. Vladdy has made it known that he wants to remain a Blue Jay, but also understands baseball is a business, and he has to do what is best for him and his family. It will be a massive failure if the Jays don’t extend Vladdy, as he has all the potential to be a perennial All-Star and MVP, and the last thing any Jays fan wants is to see him accomplish those in a different uniform.