So what happened to Vlad?

I wanted to write about Vladimir Guerrero Jr. all off season. The chaos of the day's work and a series of minor emergencies prevented the completion of the work, but “What happened to Vlad?” That question. only became more important in the last two months. After the Shohei Ohtani circus, the Blue Jays seem to have concluded that they need to bank on mostly in-house running backs in 2024 to ensure an improvement over last year's disappointing wildcard. The moves they make are mainly to fill the gaps left by the departing players. Justin Turner replaces Brandon Belt, Kevin Kiermaier replaces junior Kevin Kiermaier, and with Matt Chapman no longer available, Isaiah Keener-Falefa is … on the roster. The only real addition, pitcher Yariel Rodriguez, is intriguing but unproven in MLB. That leaves Alejandro Kirk, Alec Manoa, and most importantly Vlady to live up to the star billing in 2023, which they absolutely failed to do.

A couple of good articles this winter have touched on Vlad and I think together they make interesting, but incomplete, cases for what's going on. First, the author Bobby For Baseball Prospectus, Robert Orr wrote in November, essentially about Corey Seager and his ability to swing aggressively at pitches that hit hitters and often get fired at pitches that don't. It's like a plate order, but refined by taking into account the quality of contact, taking into account the ability to hit and count the ball (for example, a black high and a step on the entrance is a strike, but no attacker gets it. It's very good, so you don't have to bounce with less than two strikes. is, and a ball that's an inch lower is a hit and is called a strike anyway, so swinging is often the correct pitch).

To my surprise, Vlad ranks eighth on the leaderboard for pick-and-roll aggressiveness, which is largely driven by elite ball rates in good parts of the zone and significantly lower ball rates outside of it. In contrast, Bo is tied with him in terms of not missing good pitches must swings but doesn't show up on the overall leaderboard because he can't pitch should not be. Other players, like the Rays' Joey Wendle, are very good at hitting pitches, but return some of that value by throwing a lot of walkable balls. At least when it comes to what balls average MLB hitters should be hitting, Vlad seems to provide the best of both worlds. Orr's piece tells us that Vlad is patient outside of the zone, but very aggressive inside. This is a good thing if you get hurt by the balls you play.

The other is Michael Bauman's Fangraphs piece from last month. You should read it (you should read both, BP is open for free to non-subscribers), but the gist of it is that Vlad changed his swing to make more contact in the area, like Bauman's figures. hindered his ability to deal damage, making it his strongest suit of his career. Vlad will make more connections over a wider area over time, but that may be the reason he doesn't act like this. Good contact, resulting in a net negative compared to the older version that dialed in more when catching high fastballs.

Put the two together and you have a picture of a punchline that does a lot of things very well, but doesn't quite fit together. Vlad makes good decisions in a vacuum. He allows less ground up the middle than any of the other forwards, and also chases too far outside the zone to do anything with mass. He's also better at wooding the leather than most hitters and almost all sluggers who swing with as much power as he does. But most of that contact isn't useful because he's hitting too many balls in the zone, so he's hitting hard with incredible velocity. In 2023, he led baseball by recording 78 ground balls hit at 95 mph or faster. For one thing, he's in good company, as Yandy Diaz, Ronald Acuna Jr., Rafael Devers, Christian Yelich and Juan Soto round out the top six. On the other hand, it's a lot more balls than, say, Kris Bryant's shot. throughout the year nothing to show for it (less than nothing actually, since a bunch of them were double plays). He makes good contact but wastes it.

This is part of the explanation, but I don't think it's complete. Notably, Vlad's ground ball rate was only 1.4 percentage points higher than his excellent 2021 mark. He actually had an average launch angle. up, up to a career high of 10.5 degrees. It also doesn't explain how much worse his launch angle was than in 2022 was down to career level. Next week I'll try to figure out what changed in Vlad and hopefully figure out what to watch this season to see if he can turn the ship around.