When the Toronto Blue Jays built their 2024 roster, it was done under the assumption that many of the team’s position players would produce more than they did in 2023.
Although that notion feels slightly shakier than it once did after a rough week for Toronto’s offence, it is too early to dismiss it entirely — and the player it centres around more than any other is Vladimir Guerrero Jr.
In his first seven games of the season, Guerrero has been relatively quiet — apart from a monstrous home run on Opening Day — but he has provided a clue as to how his 2024 might be different from his disappointing 2023 campaign.
Specifically, the first baseman has been far more patient.
Guerrero has already taken six walks, and per Statcast he’s swung at just 18.0 percent of the pitches he’s seen outside the zone.
For a little context, the MLB average tends to sit just below 30 percent. In both 2022 and 2023, Vladdy swung outside the zone more than the average hitter.
That image tells the story of a radical transformation, and it’s far too early to say that’s what we’re seeing here. Guerrero’s 2024 has consisted of just 30 plate appearances, after all.
At the same time, he showed a noticeable uptick in patience late last season, making it more likely that this is a trend rather than a one-week occurrence.
Since September 1, 2023, the 25-year-old’s walk rate (16.0 percent) ranks 13th among 150 qualified hitters. From April to the end of August last year, he ranked 69th out of 138 qualified hitters by the same metric (8.9 percent).
On the surface, this would seem to be an unambiguously positive outcome for Guerrero.
Fewer swings outside the zone means more walks, and should force opposing pitchers into the zone where he can do more damage. Over the long term, that’s probably what will happen.
There are some trade-offs involved with a more patient approach, though. While Guerrero has done a better job of laying off pitches outside the zone lately, he’s also been less aggressive within the zone.
His zone swing rate since the beginning of 2023 has a similar pattern to his swings outside the zone:
While it’s OK to take tough pitches in the zone, there has been a bit of passivity in Guerrero’s game out of the gate.
He’s swung on just eight of the 30 first pitches he’s seen for a rate (23.1 percent) well below his career average (38.9 percent). In his career year of 2021, he set a career-high in first-pitch swing rate (43.2 percent) and hit 16 of his 48 home runs in 0-0 counts.
There is an opportunity cost associated with letting more first pitches go by — as they tend to be among the most hittable offerings in a given at-bat — and getting deeper into counts also increases the likelihood of striking out.
It’s not a coincidence that the most patient hitters the Blue Jays have, Cavan Biggio and Davis Schneider, run high strikeout rates to go with all their walks. The more pitches you take the more likely you are to find yourself in two-strike counts.
Guerrero’s seven punchouts in seven games are far from disastrous, but they are notable coming off a season where his 14.7 percent strikeout rate ranked in the 90th percentile league-wide.
Any alteration in approach is going to involve some push and pull. It’s not fair to expect Guerrero to become more patient and take more walks while simultaneously ambushing first pitches at an optimal rate and avoiding strikeouts — at least not right out of the gate.
It might take him some time to lock in the right balance, something closer to 2021 when his chase rate was well below league average, and he ranked in the top 25 among qualifying hitters in walk rate (12.3 percent – 18th) and zone swinging rate (76.1 percent – 21st).
For now, it will be interesting to monitor if Guerrero can make his discipline gains stick. A .208/.367/.333 line in the early going doesn’t scream ‘career renaissance’, but the first baseman will have a higher offensive ceiling if he can up his walk rate — and make it known to opposing pitchers that they can’t consistently get him out living outside the zone.
When Guerrero was a prospect, he was billed as a player who combined an advanced approach with rare raw power. In the last two seasons, he’s gotten away from the first part of that profile, but that could be changing.
Like many of the 2024 Blue Jays, Guerrero has plenty to prove with the bat this season. Unlike most of his teammates, his early-season performance has hinted at better days ahead.
