Vlad Guerrero Jr., for better or worse
Getting a sense of what makes sense
What to make of a 60 game season? The signal remains scant while the noise is ever-present. But even if we’re not quite to the point of saying this is what Vladimir Guerrero Jr. will be as a hitter, we can still see plenty of growth and improvement year-over-year.
Without putting too much stock into any one measure, it might be instructive to consider a few different measures to contrast his rookie campaign with its follow, the year COVID-19 ate our collective homework.
Exit Velocity - Better
“Hitting the living piss out of the baseball” is something of a Vlad Jr calling card. Yet his lethargic 2019 September dragged his overall exit velocity down to a quite pedestrian 89.4 mph, placing him in the 54th percentile.
Even in a shortened campaign, Guerrero’s strong performance at the plate translated into more balls hit harder. He upped his average exit velo to 92.5 mph, among the top 7% of qualified hitters.
Hitting the ball hard: it’s never a bad idea.
Launch Angle - Worse
“Hitting the living piss out of the baseball straight into the ground” is the “how to cook forty humans” addendum to the above improvement. Improbably, his launch angle tilted further down in 2020, averaging 4.6% after managing to hit the ball slightly higher (6%) in 2019.
While this puts Vlad Jr among the 20 lowest angled ball strikers in baseball, not all hope is lost. Juan Soto, among the greatest hitters in the game and a frequent point of comparison for Vladdy, posted a slightly lower launch angle, as did current free agent and wholly professional baseball masher D.J. LeMahieu.
It certainly feels like Vlad Jr would benefit from hitting the ball higher more often, but a full productive season while maintaining a launch angle under 5% would go a long way to changing my mind.
wOBA - Better
A marginal improvement is an improvement none the less. Depending on how you calculate weighted-on base, Guerrero either added 4 or 8 points of wOBA (from .329 to .333 via Statcast or .338 via Fangraphs.)
Gains in slugging percentage/ISO offset a slip in on-base percentage. Either way, a more productive season at the plate overall is reflected in the current offensive standard of Iron Age* baseball statistics.
xwOBA - Worse
Improved in countable production but decline in expected production, what gives? While many of the components that factor into this admittedly nebulous measure improved from 2019 to 2020, it’s hard to put my finger on why Guerrero’s expected weighted on-base average dipped from .331 to .321.
My guess? His run of opposite ground ball singles against the shift in 2020. Especially early in the season, Vlad Jr seemed to best the shift with 22-hop singles into right field. He had 8 ground ball singles hit the other way in 2020, posting a semi-absurd .435 wOBA on opposite field grounders.
Strikeout Rate - Better
A 15% strikeout for a 21-year old big leaguer in 2020 is, frankly, insane. That he’s a power hitter makes it all the more impressive. While the quality of contact stands to improve, the ability to put the bat on the ball has to be reason 1A to believe in Vladimir Guerrero Jr now and into the future.
It’s a rare skill and while his K% in 2019 was still good (72 percentile), he chased fewer pitches, swung through fewer pitches while taking fewer strikes. He struggled on the 50/50 pitches on the “shadow” of the strike zone, an area to watch in 2021.
Walk Rate - Worse
Something of a split hair as Vlad Jr.’s walk rate slid from 8.7% to 8.2%. As noted above, Guerrero controlled the strike zone better in 2020 in almost every way. He took marginally fewer walks - and was even intentionally walked once!
Our guy likes to put it in play and doesn’t get himself out in the process. Who are we to judge?
Barrel Rate - Better
Barrels are defined by the Statcast folks as batted balls with “the perfect combination of exit velocity and launch angle.” For Vlad Jr., the former improved in 2020 while the latter was slightly worse so improving his barrel rate from 7.7% to 8.7% comes down to hitting more balls harder.
Barrels are a shortcut to production and this is the metric to watch in the future. Many of Vlad Jr.’s component metrics (exit velocity, launch angle, hard hit rate and swing rate) are nearly identical to the aforementioned Juan Soto. But the frequency with which Soto barrels the baseball up puts Vlad Jr (and just about every one else) to shame, thus the video game stat line.
“Hit it hard and square and you’ll go far” is all I’m saying.
Sprint Speed - Worse
“Guerrero…apologized to teammates for letting himself go during the pandemic shutdown, squandering the previous winter’s training”
Uhh, it can only get better from here? Moving on…
Hard Hit Rate - Better
As with most of these measures, there’s a lot of noise in the mix as a 60-game season during which the subject played himself into shape does not constitute a robust sample.
But so much of the positivity extracted from all the improvements listed above come from hitting the ball harder more frequently. Fewer infield pop-ups, fewer flares, more barrels, more line drives and, anecdotally, more balls driven to all parts of the ball park.
Going hand-in-hand with his improved exit velocity, Guerrero ranked in the 93rd percentile for hard hit rate, a dramatic increase from the previous season and a major reason for optimism.
Defensive Value - Worse
Take away a player’s best defensive attribute (a strong and accurate throwing arm), add in a whole heap of extra bulk and next-to-no time to learn a brand new position and, voila! You have a defensive liability.
Being a bad third baseman is one thing. Being among the worst defensive first baseman in the league at 21 is something else. It won’t always be this bad but 2020 was a brutal defensive year for Vlad Jr., as he remains committed to returning to third base.
Even if that dream is never realized, more reps and a full Spring Training can only help keep Guerrero learn the nuances of the position. If nothing else, keeping him tethered to the bag will should make his struggles at first less obvious.
Outlook - Better
It doesn’t have to be any more complicated than: Vlad Jr was good in September 2020 after being bad (very bad!) in September 2019. The inertia of a season-ending hot streak is more than enough to carry high hopes and big dreams into 2021.
As discussed in a recent full sub-only post, Vlad Jr showed real growth in his ability to hit the ball with power to all fields. It might be nothing but it could also be the look of a player settling into comfort, better understanding how pitchers were trying to get him out and having a plan in response.
Thin sliced as these samples might be, there remains plenty of hope for Blue Jays fans to hang on Vlad Jr into 2021 and beyond.