Amid uncertain times for Blue Jays, Guerrero still says 'I’d love to be in Toronto'

ARLINGTON, Texas — The All-Star break is more a respite from the grind than an actual break for players participating in the Midsummer Classic. Regardless, Vladimir Guerrero Jr. is savouring the breather from what’s been a trying first half for his Toronto Blue Jays, one that sent his team into the break looking to sell ahead of the trade deadline rather than buy.

“Definitely it's a mental break,” Guerrero, speaking through interpreter Hector Lebron, said during the All-Star Game’s media day frenzy ahead of Monday night’s Home Run Derby. “It's been a little difficult for us in the first half and I'm very proud of myself still to make the All-Star Game again. I'm going to take it like a break, regroup and try to make a charge in the second half.”

At 44-52, his Blue Jays are going to need one hell of a charge over the season’s final 2½ months to avoid a contention-less stretch drive, something Guerrero hasn’t experienced since his rookie season of 2019. In three of the four years since, he’s helped the club earn wild-card spots while also finishing one agonizing game short in 2021, with the best team built around this core.

As a result, playing out the string in what was supposed to be a win-now season — 2019 was a build-for-the-future year — is going to be a new experience.

“That's our team. That's the team that we have. That’s our team that we made,” said Guerrero. “And that's all I can say about that. That's who we are.”

They didn’t necessarily have to be this way, as after Shohei Ohtani turned them down in the off-season, potential off-season targets Teoscar Hernandez, Matt Chapman, Joc Pederson and Rhys Hoskins all said they had limited engagement with the Blue Jays.

How much of a difference they may or may not have made can be litigated down the road, as they are where they are and must now leverage the two weeks remaining before the July 30 trade deadline to leverage their expiring contracts. 

Subtracting, rather than adding, will be another unwanted first for Guerrero, who shakes off the looming frenzy around the Blue Jays by saying, as he has before, “I control what I can control, I'm just trying to go out there and give my 100 per cent and whatever happens after that, I can't control it.”

Also different this summer is that his potential free agency, looming at the end of 2025, is dragging him into the deadline tumult, even though right now, the Blue Jays don’t intend to deal him or Bo Bichette, and rival executives say that has been their posture.

Guerrero has said on multiple occasions that he wants to remain in Toronto long-term, but talks last spring didn’t lead anywhere and haven’t meaningfully picked up since. 

Asked why he wants to remain in Toronto, Guerrero said: “I’d love to be in Toronto. My family loves Toronto. My kids love Toronto. But at the end of the day, it's a business. We all need to understand that. So, whatever happens, happens. But, definitely, I would like to stay there.”

Hence, the respite of the All-Star break and his fourth straight selection to the American League roster. That he’s proud of this trip back speaks to some of the challenges he faced early in the season, when he hit .206/.319/.324 through his first 27 games but has hit .320/.375/.506 since.

The turnaround coincided with both a swing adjustment, moving away from what hitting coach Guillermo Martinez described as “over-exaggerating some movements” picked up during the off-season, and a pep talk from close friend and former teammate Teoscar Hernandez when the Dodgers visited in April.

“Sometimes, as a player, not only Vladdy, when your head is not in the place that it's supposed to be and you're not doing well, on the field, it gets harder, you know?” said Hernandez. “I think he was getting a lot of pressure because of the situation that the team was (experiencing), in that moment he wasn't hitting good and everybody was saying negative things about him. I got the chance to talk to him and just tell him the player that he is, the person that he is, and the things that he can do for that organization.”

At the same time, there were ongoing conversations with Martinez, who didn’t want to get too specific on Guerrero’s tweaks, but said they were intended to help him “elevate the ball a little more and that got him into a little trouble.” And while the premise had some validity, Martinez believed they were unnecessary because “they were movements that he was already making.”

“If you think about making those certain movements, they become bigger and longer,” he continued. “That's all it was.”

Guerrero’s correction initially began with lots of hits but relatively little damage — he had only seven extra-base hits in May while batting .357 — but went on to slug .608 during a monster June that included eight homers and seven doubles. 

Rather than chasing power, Guerrero instead focused on making sure his swing and his approach were right, trusting that the power would follow the way it has. 

“Baseball is about adjustments,” said Guerrero. “You go to the off-season, you make some adjustments, maybe they're not working in April or May, and then you've got to readjust again. Just keep making adjustments every day.”

Martinez puts it more simply: “He just went back to being Vladdy.”

“Obviously, we discussed it a little bit and said, 'You know what, let's just go back to what you've always done,'” he said. “Even now that he's now elevating the ball a little bit better and hitting some homers, he's still not thinking about trying to do that. Since I first met Vlad, he's always discussed being a hitter first and the power comes next, instead of the other way around, thinking about power and then trying to be a hitter. That's not who he is. Just taking him back to basics, thinking about hitting line drives and staying through the middle of the field allowed him to be who he is right now.”

And that, once again, is an All-Star, the lone one in a season gone awry for the Blue Jays.