Vladimir Guerrero Jr, Professional Hitter
What if there *were* pictures in the box score? 👀📈
I interviewed José Bautista one hundred lifetimes ago and, over the course of our conversation, we got talking about CC Sabathia. The Yankees workhorse had long perplexed Bautista, though the Blue Jays great figured some things out not long before we spoke.
It was an interesting window into what made Bautista tick, a look at how much work he put in and how much he knew about pitchers around the league.
“Against him, my approach was beware of fastball/curveball first pitch, fastball/change up in between and fastball/changeup/slider with two strikes, if I got there. And that’s exactly how he pitched me. “
As luck would have it, this is also almost exactly how Sabathia pitched Vlad Jr on Monday night, giving us the opportunity to witness the maturation of a young hitter in real time.
In his third plate appearance against Guerrero, Sabathia threw three straight fastballs (cutters), falling behind 2-1 in the process. Not wanting to give in to the the prodigious youngster, CC opted to flip a backdoor slider over the outside corner, an attempt to either even the count or (in my mind) effectively end the plate appearance if he fell behind 3-1.
Sabathia missed but got the call, continuing the trend of Vlad Jr getting pitched like a vet while also being umpired like an unproven rookie.
2-2 count and Sabathia has a choice, and Guerrero a decision: what will he do 2-2? He might throw a changeup to the same spot*, earning a swing-and-miss from the young hitter. He’s done that about 14% of the time to righties with two strikes this year.
He could opt for a cutter up and in to freeze the hitter. He throws that up-and-in to righties, hoping to catch them leaning out over the plate. He does this about half the time against right-handed batters with two strikes.
Or he could double up on the slider, go back to the same pitch in the same spot. Expand the zone a little bit after getting a gift from the ump, look to get the young slugger guessing.
Sabathia opted for the third option, throwing a backdoor slider down and away**. It missed the zone but Guerrero did not miss. He was ready and hit a solid ground ball for a base hit.
It wasn’t a trademark 110 mph bullet off the wall, but this was the kind of Professional Approach that belies Guerrero’s age and experience. It’s the ability to recognize a tough pitch from a grizzled vet, to make an adjustment and just make something positive happen.
Guerrero isn’t yet the baseball baba yega. One day the legend will grow larger than name recognition currently carries him. That fear, the mythological place were opposing managers do Vlad math at the end of games, always knowing how many batters need to reach before he comes up again, it will come.
And when it does, it won’t be because of three-hop singles past a diving Didi Gregorious. It will come because of the power - which has mysteriously deserted him. But hits like the one featured here, hits that provide shining examples of his high hitting IQ and sheer ability to put the bat to the ball wherever its pitched - these are the things that will make him great. A few thinking, approach-minded hits like this open up entire other worlds of possibilities.
When pitchers get too fine, he will punish them. When they try to outfox him, he will be ready. When they make mistakes, he won’t miss many. This time is coming, soon. For now we’re watching Vlad Jr put down the building blocks, one by one, right before our eyes.
* - in his first plate appearance, Guerrero doubled on a tough changeup thrown down and away with the count 2-1.
** - in his second AB of the night, Guerrero struck out on a backdoor slider that was a bad miss by Sabathia, a pretty flat slider up that Vlad Jr swung through - after another marginal call went against him.