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56 minutes ago
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David Eckstein was a quality baseball player.
No one would confuse him for a slugger like Vladimir Guerrero Jr.
This season, though, the Toronto Blue Jays' superstar has been dangerously similar to the long-time contact hitter and defensively skilled shortstop.
Eckstein is retired now, but he did play one season with Vladdy Sr. back in the day, for whatever that's worth.
Somehow, Vladdy Jr. is struggling in a way he never has before.
"The Blue Jays still make contact -- Toronto has MLB's second-lowest strikeout rate -- but they rank in the bottom 10 in measures such as isolated power, hard hit rate and average exit velocity," ESPN's Bradford Doolittle wrote in a new article on Wednesday. "The avatar for this is the franchise cornerstone, Vladimir Guerrero Jr., baseball's newest version of David Eckstein. Guerrero has a good average (.282), is walking as much as ever and has cut his elite strikeout rate down another 3.2% from his career-best level in 2025. But with a sub-.400 slugging average and drooping exit velocities, he's just not hitting the ball very hard very often."
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The Blue Jays are trying all sorts of things to wake Vladdy up, including hitting him leadoff on Tuesday.
For whatever reason, though, his contact quality just hasn't been up to his usual standard.
Doolittle wrote that blurb when considering what Toronto might do before the trade deadline, and he goes on to say things essentially hinge on Guerrero.
"Unless this changes, it's hard to imagine the Blue Jays' idling season is going to take off in a way to justify an aggressive deadline," Doolittle writes.
The Blue Jays turned things around in the latter stages of last season, and maybe they can do that again. As far as Guerrero is concerned, they'll certainly hope that things get better sooner rather than later.
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