Toronto Blue Jays Counting on All-Star To Replicate Last Season's Red-Hot Stretch
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Despite some incredible individual performances over the first month of the season, the Toronto Blue Jays have gotten off to a painfully mediocre start.
With a 13-15 record, they are fourth place in the American League East.
Only the Baltimore Orioles, Minnesota Twins, Chicago White Sox and Los Angeles Angels have a worse record than them in the AL.
For the Blue Jays to get their season on track, they need their star players to start producing like they are capable of doing.
A lot of eyes have been on free agent signing Anthony Santander, who has been a major bust at the start of his tenure with a .179/.261/.302 slash line, three home runs that are tied for a team high and four doubles and nine RBI.
He is far from the only player struggling, as another middle-of-the-order bat the team is waiting to heat up is Vladimir Guerrero Jr.
The four-time All-Star, like the entire Toronto lineup, has been dealing with a power outage over the first month of the campaign.
Guerrero has only two home runs and six doubles across his first 121 plate appearances with 12 RBI to go along with a slash line of .272/.372/.388.
Certainly not terrible stats to begin a year, but those are not up to the standard he has set for himself, especially on the back of agreeing to a historic extension with the franchise.
Despite Guerrero setting a deadline for an extension to get done before the first day of spring training, his representatives and the team never stopped talking about a potential deal.
It eventually culminated in a massive 14-year, $500 million extension, which includes a record-setting $325 million signing bonus.
A contract of that magnitude heightens the expectations for a player, and it creates a pressure to perform.
To this point, he hasn’t been bad, but the team needs more from him as the face of the franchise and their cornerstone building block.
That is part of the reason why David Schoenfield of ESPN has highlighted Guerrero as the biggest disappointment amongst first basemen in baseball thus far this season.
Alas, one slow month doesn’t mean Toronto made a mistake committing to him long-term since, as Schoenfield pointed out, overcoming pedestrian starts isn’t anything new for the two-time Silver Slugger winner.
Last year, Guerrero had a .229/.331/.348 slash line through April with only three home runs, five doubles and 11 RBI.
He ended the 2024 campaign hitting at least .300 in each month the rest of the way, finishing with an impressive .323/.396/.544 slash line, 30 home runs, 44 doubles and 103 RBI.
A turnaround of that proportion is certainly possible again with Guerrero being one of the most talented right-handed hitters in the game.
