Skinny Vlad is the meme we deserve for 2021
It's not the losses but the gains
Remotely assessing the physical fitness of strangers is a loser’s game. What an outside observer knows is vastly outweighed (!) by what they assume as well as what they hope to be true.
I’ve tried to take a wide berth (!!) from the Vlad Jr fitness discourse, by and large (!!!). Inference and innuendo are not the stock-in-trade in this space (we’re about semi-obscure references and typos around here.) I’m just not comfortable commenting on what kind of shape a given player should be in or a given level of fitness that is required to ensure good baseball outcomes. It’s baseball, it just doesn’t work like that. Until it does.
News (and photos) showing that Vladimir Guerrero Jr has, since the resumption of baseball activities in July, lost 32 pounds were greeted with the typical mix of “awesome!” and “what took so long?” type of commentary one might expect, all to the benefit of no one. Any person taking an active interest in the health and wellbeing is something to celebrate, no matter their story.
The actual numbers — pounds lost, plates added, non-specific markers of fitness increased — are less important to me that what they represent. My feeling is this newfound level of dedication is something the Blue Jays have longed for and wondered about for the last 2+ years: would “the light” inside Vlad Jr’s head go off?
I don’t care much about how he looks, per se. The whole “not selling jeans” line still holds today. But the recognition that it takes more than just uncanny hand eye coordination, it takes more than raw power to translate skills learned as a child into real world baseball production is crucial. And welcome. And encouraging, for fans of the Blue Jays, Vladimir Guerrero Jr and mashed baseballs alike.
Baseball is very hard, even when you’re very good. While there isn’t just one way to realize one’s potential and become the player you want to be, it takes work. To realize that your peers have passed you is powerful. To learn that the game moves more slowly when your body and mind are ready is powerful. To feel powerful is to be powerful, even when “powerful” is your default setting.
Motivation is a weird thing but, for now, it looks like the end of the 2019 season and the beginning of the 2020 season helped ring Vlad Jr’s bell. Is trying to keep up with Big Ron and Soto and Tatis enough? Is the potential future payday enough carrot? Dad stuff? Or not wanting to spend hours staring at a ceiling wondering why you didn’t do more?
Will it stick? That really depends on whether or not it works. Time will tell. Only Vlad Jr knows which internal voice is loudest. Only he knows if, or when, enough is enough.