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How low can Vladimir Guerrero Jr. go?
With 48 desperate games remaining in a season careening nowhere for the Blue Jays — and especially for the would-be slugger — the struggles of the 27-year-old remain the alarming factor that best defines the decline of the reigning American League champions.
And for a front office and coaching staff, it is both vexing and exasperating.
“I lose sleep,” general manager Ross Atkins said on Tuesday when asked on Sportsnet’s Blair and Baker show what has happened to the face of the franchise. “We need to do a better job.
“(Guerrero) feels a lot of pressure and disappointment, but he’s handling it and facing it head on.”
Though he chooses his words carefully — including placing some of the blame on himself — it is clear from Atkins comments that there is a level of organizational chagrin regarding Guerrero’s struggles.
In his own way, Atkins dispelled the “one swing away” line that has defined much of the wishful narrative from the team as it pertains to Guerrero’s woes, a dismissive explanation that grows sillier the deeper he slides into this rut.
“There’s no glaring, alarming concern,” Atkins told Blair and Barker. “Once those small differences start to become patterns retraining them while you’re trying to maintain confidence is a very difficult thing.”
Of course, everything about what Guerrero has done this season is both glaring and alarming, a big reason why the team is 53-61, in last place in the American League East and barely has a hope or a prayer of returning to the post-season.
In his annual post-trade deadline radio rounds on Tuesday, the Jays GM was refreshingly candid about the Guerrero woes, addressing them both with TSN’s Overdrive and Blair and Barker.
The bottom line takeaways from the GM: The team hasn’t stopped looking for answers and isn’t necessarily closer to finding them.
How bad is it for Guerrero?
Let’s start with the gloom watch officially hitting its depths: Will Guerrero go an entire season without hitting a home run at the Rogers Centre?
As unfathomable as that prospect is, it speaks to the exasperation surrounding the $500-million man. Guerrero has just six home runs overall, itself a major mystery, and objectively and subjectively the biggest reason the team finds itself in the current first-to-last predicament.
After another meek 0-for-3 night in Houston on Tuesday, Guerrero is 0-for-11 in his past three games and has seen his OPS dip to .687.
Even as his frustration manifests by snapping baseball bat lumber over his knee, Guerrero remains the face of the franchise, a team that has the lightest scoring offence in all of MLB. And he knows it.
The Jays know it as well and are well aware of how much of the team’s offensive identity is attached to Guerrero.
What are the Blue Jays solutions for Guerrero woes?
No one is working harder at unlocking the puzzle than Guerrero, which is where a level of empathy for his struggles and respect for his drive to improve needs to be acknowledged.
From a team level, Atkins suggested one approach is try to simplify things and limit the noise in Guerrero’s head.
“We try to narrow those communication lines for him,” Atkins told TSN’s Overdrive. “That helps with the consistency. We don’t want eight Blue Jays voices. We’d like that to be about three.
“My interactions with Vladdy are about his family. About the human being and what he needs for us and what questions he has with the team. I’m really encouraged by his toughness and his perseverance.”
With slim post-season hopes barely flickering — Fangraphs had dipped their odds at getting in the tournament at just 4.5% following Tuesday’s defeat — the Jays aren’t going to give up on a 2026 turnaround just yet.
The focus, however, needs be on a major reset in the off-season.
Atkins technical breakdown of Guerrero’s struggles
In this age of high-tech tools and analytical expertise, of course the Jays have a good idea of what has gone awry with Guerrero. It’s the notion of quick fix that is the problem.
In his conversation with the TSN Overdrive crew, Atkins endeavoured to shed some insight into the incomprehensible struggles at the plate.
“Timing has been impacted,” Atkins said. “Rhythm which impacts confidence.
“It is such a fine motor skill to have that synched up and your timing starts to change just a hair then finding that rhythm to be synched up to be in powerful positions … is one of the hardest things to do in sports.”
The longer such struggles linger, the deeper they become rooted, the more difficult they are to eradicate. For Guerrero and those helping to fix him, it has become a vicious circle.
The fact that Atkins notes the eroding confidence is revealing, even if it is apparent to the naked eye of Blue Jays fans and opposing pitchers, who feast on the struggles.
“When (the swing) starts to get a little out of sync, that can start to impact things that are going on in your brain,” Atkins said of a “slugger” who isn’t even in the top 200 of big league homers. “Getting back to the pattern isn’t just a click of a button, isn’t us just showing him that pattern. It’s a feeling. He’s working towards it. I know he’s going to find it.”
So with two months remaining in the season, is there any hope for Vlad to right that once formidable ship?
“I’m not expecting it to be a light switch turnaround for any offensive player,” Atkins said. “But I do believe things can happen quickly.”
Are injuries holding Guerrero back?
If it were as simple as Guerrero breaking down physically, Guerrero would have taken more than the occasional came with back tightness off.
During Tuesday’s non-competitive 7-2 loss to the Astros in Houston, Guerrero once again appeared to be in pain after legging out a ground ball in the eighth inning.
Afterwards, Jays manager John Schneider said that Guerrero was “just tight and tired” though there was a whiff of exasperation as the skip said so.
With a day game on Wednesday to finish off the three-game series in Houston followed by another matinee against the Cubs in Chicago on Thursday — as a make up for an earlier rainout — it’s possible the all-star first baseman could be given some time to recharge and recuperate.