General Blue Jays Thread

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[GameChannel]

I may be in the minority but I am getting concerned that Vladdy may not turn out to be the star everyone predicted him to become. Based on what I saw last season and early this season, it doesn't fill me with confidence.

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John Gibbons says swing adjustments may be to blame for Vlad Guerrero Jr.'s slow start | Tim and Sid

14:00 | August 4, 2020

Former Blue Jays manager John Gibbons joins Tim and Sid to discuss the issues baseball currently faces, his new role with the Atlanta Braves and Vlad Jr.’s early struggles.

[Fairview4Life]

We definitely haven't had a good fire the hitting coach thread in awhile.

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Vladimir Guerrero Jr. grounded by a failure to launch with Toronto Blue Jays - TSN.ca

But he is the son of a Hall of Famer and he performed like a Hall of Famer in the minor leagues. Blue Jays fans expected him to be a cornerstone piece of a young, exciting franchise on the rise.

But Guerrero hasn’t hit for average or been the on-base machine the baseball world expected. He isn’t the slugger or run producer Jays fans thought they were getting.

Why? Was all of the hype surrounding Guerrero wrong, or is something else at play?

No more excuses. The 21-year-old Guerrero hits too many balls on the ground and doesn’t drive the ball. In technical terms, the launch angle in his swing is well below average. He is effectively swinging flat to the baseball instead of hitting the bottom of the ball to create backspin and lift.

Guerrero has never had extraordinary launch angle, even in the minors. His was 10 to 12 degrees, depending on who was doing the evaluating.

Like many people, I believed Guerrero would take what he learned last year and use it to make this his breakout season.

I know Blue Jays coaches told Guerrero where he needed to improve. They didn’t talk about launch angle specifically; they talked about bat path and timing and having a better plan at the plate. He needed to relax and slow the game down. He needed to get his timing right and stop jumping at the baseball. He needed to hunt fastballs and be aggressive early in the count. He needed to drive the baseball and not just be satisfied with contact.

But Guerrero is off to a bit of a slow start. Not surprisingly, his launch angle is low again. He just recently raised it to 7.6 degrees, which is slightly above his 6.7 mark from last year but still well below the league average of 11.9. His ground ball rate is 64.3 per cent so far in 2020, which is much higher than his 49.6 per cent mark from last year.

There is much more production to be had when one hits the ball in the air. The Jays attempted to address Guerrero’s bat path and approach, but it hasn’t improved and is limiting his overall production. The Home Run Derby isn’t real game action, but that memorable night last summer did show a glimpse of what he can be with more launch angle.

I saw Guerrero play in the minors, and he was unbelievable. He got to the majors at such a young age because he was a man among boys. He was a slugging machine who was patiently aggressive as a hitter. He didn’t chase pitches out of the zone and punished those in the zone. He hunted fastballs and then jumped out of his shoes to crush them. Guerrero’s production would grow tremendously If he could even get back to his minor-league launch angle.

He remains a work in progress at the plate. We were spoiled by other young phenoms like Ronald Acuna Jr. and Juan Soto, who arrived in the majors and immediately performed like superstars. Guerrero’s day may still come, but he is going to have to adjust to get there. It isn’t coming naturally.

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vladdyjr27

The criticism will always be there just have faith in God
#godfirst

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The Blue Jays know what’s wrong with Vlad Guerrero. Fixing it is just a matter of time, and confidence | The Star

Guerrero’s biggest issue continues to be hitting too many balls on the ground. Like last year, he’s making hard contact but he’s not doing much with it. In 2019, Guerrero hit 50.4 per cent of balls put into play on the ground with an average launch angle of 6.7 degrees. He entered play on Saturday with a 60.6 per cent ground-ball rate and an even lower 6.5-degree launch angle. The line-drive rate dropped by four per cent while the fly-ball mark fell by almost eight year over year.

That’s not the trajectory Toronto had been hoping for after the coaching staff preached bat path and approach throughout the second half of last year. There have been glimpses, such as last August when Guerrero hit .314 with a .977 OPS in 25 games, but overall the young phenom has yet to put everything together for an extended stretch.

In layman’s terms, Guerrero is hitting the top of the baseball far too often. Guerrero has used the barrel of his bat 6.1 per cent of the time in 2020 vs. 7.7 per cent from a year ago. He’s frequently driving the ball into the ground by hitting the upper part of the baseball 48.5 per cent of the time, compared to 39.7 per cent in 2019.

The most troubling part, especially following an off-season when the club claimed Guerrero rededicated himself to a strict diet and fitness routine, is the numbers are trending in the wrong direction. It would be ill-advised to bet against a guy with as much natural talent as Guerrero, but last year’s advanced stats left a lot of room for improvement. Fundamental changes were needed not only to his workout schedule and diet, but his swing. So far, the adjustments have yet to take hold.

Opposing pitchers have used a pretty similar approach to Guerrero since his arrival in the big leagues. Last year, Guerrero saw 55.7 per cent fastballs, 33.7 per cent breaking balls (curveball, slider, etc.) and 10.6 per cent off-speed pitches (changeup, splitter, etc.). This year there has been 64.5 per cent fastballs, 23.7 per cent breaking balls and 11.8 per cent off-speed.

There are differences between the two years, but not big ones. Instead, it’s what Guerrero is doing with those pitches that stands out. Through 11 games this season, Guerrero was batting just .208 with a .292 slugging percentage, no home runs and two doubles on fastballs. Compare that to last year when he was batting .306 with a .476 slugging percentage and 21 extra-base hits on the same pitch.

Guerrero’s performance over the last year is even more disappointing when his numbers are put alongside those of his star peers. Atlanta Braves outfielder Ronald Acuna Jr. broke into the league at 20 years old and posted 4.2 wins above replacement value in his first year. By year two, his WAR soared to 5.7 after 41 homers, 101 RBIs with 37 stolen bases.

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A Swing and a Belt with Dan Shulman | Buffalo Bound

August 7, 2020

So you’re trying to put together a baseball team for a season in which you think your team has a chance to compete; really make some noise. Just one problem… you don’t have a place to play.

COVID-19 border restrictions have forced the Blue Jays out of Canada, so their temporary home will be their AAA affiliate’s field in Buffalo. How well can it work out? And can you turn it into a competitive advantage? Jays GM Ross Atkins joins the show to discuss.

[Schad]

On the Vlad paradox. Right now he is:

89th percentile in exit velocity.
85th percentile in hard-hit balls.
Above-average K rate.
High-average whiff rate.
Below-average walk rate.
Above-average chase rate.
14th percentile in launch angle.


Unless changing his swing dramatically ups his whiff/K rate, there's no way that isn't a top-tier hitter in the future, right? It's the only thing he does poorly.

I think he's been the victim of his own natural talent. Young players hitting the ball on the ground too often is pretty common; you could see it with both Vlad/Bo in the minors, and Bo is also still below league-average in LA. It's just that most players will have that affect their overall performance enough that they won't reach the bigs until they cease chopping the ball, whereas Vlad's combination of plate discipline and exit velocity meant that he hit a lot of screaming groundball singles/doubles and produced eye-popping numbers despite the flaw.

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Atkins: Toronto hitters 'trying to do too much' - MLB.com

Following a 5-8 start that could have easily gone better than it did, the Blue Jays find themselves staring at what Charlie Montoyo called “that next jump” competitively.

Toronto’s pitching has been solid, from the rotation back through a bullpen that’s surprised many with a modernized look and several young starters excelling in relief roles. The lineup is a different story entirely, as the Blue Jays enter Tuesday’s opener in Buffalo, N.Y., ranking last in the league with just three runs scored per game.

The Blue Jays have been too aggressive at times, and have particularly struggled to produce with runners on base. Only the Mets have swung at more first pitches than the Blue Jays (32.6%), while they rank last in the league in both average (.177) and OPS (.500) when hitting with runners on. On Tuesday, general manager Ross Atkins attributed this to the Blue Jays' young lineup gaining experience as they go.

“Youth is what we’re seeing,” Atkins said. “We knew that. We expected that there would be bumps. There were times last year when we saw our youth. One of the biggest differences in the Major Leagues -- obviously talent is a difference in the Major Leagues -- but it’s also game planning and the ability to really prepare for lineups and for hitters. Hitters need to make adjustments to that.”

There’s been a clear and understandable frustration from the Blue Jays’ hitters at times, because they know they’re capable of much more. To a man, this roster believes it should be sitting at .500 if they’d only taken advantage of a few more opportunities along the way, but “close” doesn’t count in the win column.

Taking a deep breath and letting their talent work for itself might be the simplest solution here.

“I do think there’s a bit of guys, just because they believe so much in one another and themselves, they’re trying to do too much,” Atkins said.