Guerrero Jr. aims to ride better pitch selection to new heights with Blue Jays

DUNEDIN, Fla. – The trick to discovering solutions in numbers throughout this big-data age is in figuring out what’s a trigger and what’s a symptom, and the low season gave Vladimir Guerrero Jr. an opportunity to do exactly that.

His 2022 marketing campaign was of the calibre most 23-year-olds dream about – 32 homers, 97 RBIs, an .819 OPS, prime percentile rankings within the classes that matter, together with 94^th in hard-hit share, 96^th in common exit velocity and 99^th in max exit velo, plus a Gold Glove besides.

Who wouldn’t take a 3.9 bWAR and 132 OPS+ to the financial institution?

Yet the brilliance of his MVP-level 2021 for the Toronto Blue Jays made that really feel disappointing. He’d already proven that he’s able to extra and he arrived at spring coaching a 12 months in the past intent on pushing that stat line up one other notch. That immediately viral and oft meme’d line concerning the trailer and the film adopted him round the entire rattling season.

“The biggest thing for him and I’ll compare it to 2021, he let the game come to him versus him going after the game,” stated Blue Jays hitting coach Guillermo Martinez. “Hitters have to know that yearly is completely different and if you go chasing numbers, you begin chasing pitches, I assume he simply put himself in a gap and it was powerful getting out of it. …

“We had a lot of conversations but it’s so tough to actually see those things throughout the course of the season, especially when things are not going the way you want them to go. But you’re not getting out in the off-season, so him being able to sit back and actually think about that, he realized, I was trying to do too much, and the by-product is those types of results.”

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Again, price stating an awesome majority of gamers join “those types of results” in a heartbeat. For Guerrero, although, the underlying numbers behind that stat line have been trigger for introspection, with a chase share that spiked from 24.5 per cent to 30.5 per cent, resulting in an 11-per-cent improve in touch on these out-of-zone swings.

Making extra contact extra typically on unhealthy pitches, particularly whereas being pitched down within the zone way more typically, is a fairly unhealthy recipe.

So whereas there was a lot consideration paid to his drop in launch angle from 9.4 to 4.3 levels, the bottom of his 4 seasons within the majors, and a spike of practically seven per cent in groundball price, from 45.6 to 52.3 with a corresponding drop in fly ball price, these have been signs, not causes.

Hence, the all-star first baseman stated this 12 months his focus shall be on “pitch selection, definitely,” and replied with one phrase, “anxious,” when requested why final 12 months he expanded his often tight zone.

“Last year I put a lot of pressure on myself,” Guerrero stated Friday in feedback interpreted by Hector Lebron. “As a ballplayer, you want to get better every year. You guys know the numbers that I put up in ’21. Last spring training, I came here trying to put up even better numbers and I think that affected me a little bit. This year I’m coming in with a plan, I’m going to trust my talent, I’m going to keep working hard and hopefully everything goes well.”

A dominant Guerrero clearly makes the Blue Jays lineup all of the extra treacherous. And that he’s not solely recognized a extra disciplined method as a precedence, but additionally strategized methods to manifest it, underlines how intent he’s concerning the adjustment.

While he gained’t have longtime teammate and shut buddy Teoscar Hernandez slugging within the cleanup spot behind him, the revamped Blue Jays order will nonetheless carry loads of thump. Brandon Belt, if he regains kind, would make some sense within the four-hole, fellow lefty swinger Daulton Varsho has large energy that might be leveraged there whereas Alejandro Kirk additionally stuffed the position capably for a big chunk of 2022.

To that finish, Guerrero vowed that “if they’re going to walk me, if they’re going to pitch around me, then I’m going to take my walks this year.” But tempering his elite bat-to-ball abilities may be simpler stated than performed.

“When you may type of cowl each a part of the zone after which slightly bit above or under it, it’s engaging to go after a few of these pitches,” stated supervisor John Schneider. “Shrinking the zone is going to be a priority for him – and everybody. Understanding that the way our lineup is going to be balanced out, it doesn’t always have to be him that’s getting the big hit. It could be him getting a guy over. It could be him drawing a walk. When he’s locked into that mindset, he gets really dangerous and those mistakes get hit really far.”

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Guerrero believes the adjustment for him is extra psychological, in not forcing issues on the plate by controlling his intense willpower and competitiveness. He spent the winter engaged on such an method and that self-discipline was mirrored when he was requested: if 2021 was the trailer and 2022 was the film, then what would 2023 be? He replied, “this year I’m not going to say anything. You guys have to watch.”

Martinez is amongst these most desperate to see the subsequent episode.

“Like anything in life, you just continue to learn more about yourself, learn from your experiences and continue developing as a human being,” he stated. “That’s what he’s doing right now in the cages, in his work, and hopefully it just translates to the game. I’m pretty sure it will.”

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