What advanced numbers tell us about Vladimir Guerrero Jr.'s slow start at the plate

The 2023 Toronto Blue Jays season has included a number of players producing at a level below their projections, but the one who has earned much of the spotlight recently is Vladimir Guerrero Jr.

With 76 games in the books, the star first baseman is hitting .275/.345/.423 — good for a 115 wRC+. That production is far from disastrous, but it doesn’t reflect what Guerrero has been capable of in the past.

Most of the concerns surrounding the 24-year-old are with his power. He has only nine home runs to his name, and his isolated slugging has fallen off despite the fact that power production is up around the league.

These results aren’t just puzzling because Guerrero has proven he has more power than that in his bat in previous years. His Statcast numbers and batted-ball profile are also relatively similar to what he produced in his MVP runner-up season in 2021 — a campaign where he hit 48 home runs.

Guerrero’s numbers are slightly worse this year than they were during his breakout across the board, but the similarities are noticeable. What we’re seeing now is closer to his MVP form than his 2020 and 2022 seasons.

He’s not hitting the ball on the ground more than half the time like he was in those years, and his average exit velocity and launch angle numbers are the second-highest marks of his career. He’s even running a career-high hard-hit rate (55.9%).

That makes the biggest question why the quality-of-contact numbers that look like this ...

… aren’t resulting in elite production.

A few factors are at play. One of them, indisputably, is luck. In 2021, the first baseman hit a line drive or fly ball at 100+ mph on 4.7 per cent of the pitches he saw — and 73.7 per cent of those balls turned into hits. 

Guerrero has produced a triple-digit liner or fly on the same percentage of his pitches seen this season (4.7%), but just 60.4 per cent of those batted balls have become hits. It’s clear that he’s had more than his fair share of bullets find gloves — like this 115 mph liner into the mitt of Oswaldo Arcia.

This isn’t completely a matter of being snakebitten, though. Guerrero is dealing with a fundamental issue with the type of flyballs he’s hitting. 

When it comes to power, we can easily put aside his grounders — because they account for the occasional double and nothing more — and line drives, because his power production is as strong on them this year (.979 SLG) as it was in 2021 (.957 SLG). 

When we look at flyball results, that’s where the dramatic differences reveal themselves.

We tend to assume that if Guerrero puts the ball in the air, his strength and bat speed will generate elite results, but that hasn’t been the case this year.

One big reason for that is that the slugger has consistently been hitting the ball to the largest part of the ballpark. 

No one doubts Guerrero's ability to clear the centre-field wall when he really gets behind the ball, but hitting 48.0 per cent of his flies up the middle is not a recipe for consistent success. For a little context, between 2019 and 2022 Guerrero hit just 39.1 per cent of his flies to centre. 

Those batted balls have resulted in just one hit this season.

Pulling the ball in the air is far easier said than done, but there’s no doubt it’s the best way to generate strong power numbers. There’s a reason Danny Jansen has as many home runs as Guerrero despite having inferior raw power and playing just 44 games.

Guerrero has hit just 11 flyballs to left all season, good for a 22.7 per cent pull rate. That’s not too far off his 2021 number (26.0%), but the subtle difference is being felt.

Placement is an issue, but the fact Guerrero is less productive on flyballs to all fields than he usually is can’t be ignored — and is more difficult to explain. His average exit velo on flyballs (96.2 mph) is similar to his 2021 mark (96.7 mph), and his launch angle (37.7) is also reminiscent of his 2021 number (36.3).

Sure, he’s hitting the ball slightly softer and getting under it a little more, but it doesn’t seem like enough to account for the difference. One thing that could be eating into his flyball production is Guerrero’s home park, where he has yet to go yard in 2023. 

Rogers Centre has hosted just 32 games since its renovation, so we’re delving into the speculation zone here, but thus far Statcast ranks it as one of the worst parks for righties to hit home runs this season. It has a Park Factor of 92 for right-handed home-run hitting, which is 21st in the majors.

Meanwhile, the three locations Guerrero called home in 2021 — where he hit 31 home runs — were all ranked as excellent venues for right-handed power that season.

These numbers are compelling but they come from far smaller samples than we generally use to evaluate how ballparks play. There are some compelling correlations there, but we need to see more of the new Rogers Centre to know how it affects hitters.

Unfortunately, there just aren’t too many clean conclusions to be drawn from Guerrero’s inability to turn elite contact into elite numbers in 2023. 

The Blue Jays should be encouraged by the fact that a lot of what he’s doing at the plate is strongly correlated with success. His strikeout and walk rates are strong, he’s keeping the ball off the ground better than he did last year, and he’s not too far off some of his 2021 standards in raw contact quality.

There’s an argument to be made that a lot of what he’s done is more impressive than his 2022 work, despite the lack of results. Even so, he seems to be getting dragged down by a myriad of small factors like his tendency to square hit-balls in the air and drive them to straightaway centre, as opposed to getting out in front of them and pulling them down the left-field line.

A little more luck should come Guerrero’s way, and we’ll learn more about whether the new-look Rogers Centre is having a negative effect on him over time. For now, the 24-year-old probably isn’t nearly as lost as he’s looked at times, and plenty of patience is warranted for a player who’s doing so many things right.