Clear Eyes, Full Heart, Better Bat? Will Vladdy's Eye Surgery Make a Difference?
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The Blue Jays paid Vladimir Guerrero Jr. $40M this year for his performance before his recent laser eye surgery.
They still owe him $455M for what he will do after his recent laser eye surgery.
So whether you believe players are paid for past or future performance (hint: it's the latter), the Blue Jays need Guerrero Jr. to be the middle-of-the-order bat who terrorized pitchers during the 2025 playoffs if they are to return to the postseason in 2027.
When news recently came out that Guerrero Jr. had eye surgery at a laser eye center in Miami, the optimistic predictions were flowing.
Massive offseason update. Our goat will be back in a big way 2027 👀👀👀 pic.twitter.com/DtdJ7GcLNB
— Gate 14 Podcast (@Gate14Pod) October 9, 2026
But will the laser eye surgery actually help Vladdy go back to the future?
Don't bet Doc Brown's DeLorean on it.
There is limited data on the impact of LASIK surgery on professional baseball players, but the evidence available suggests a positive but limited effect.
The most comprehensive study on this topic, published in 2025 by the Society of American Baseball Research (SABR) titled "The Impact of Laser-Assisted In Situ Keratomileusis (LASIK) on MLB Batting Performance by M.P. Geiss and David Portney (not the Barstool guy with the similar name, though Portney is a fellow Michigan Wolverine though an ophthalmology resident).
They concluded that LASIK surgery had a positive impact on batters' performance, but the effect was not statistically significant, and the hitters did not return to their pre-surgery levels from two years prior (2025 for Guerrero). Other studies reached similar conclusions, but this was by far the most comprehensive.
Our larger dataset examining advanced hitting statistics also showed no statistically significant changes in hitting performance after LASIK. A mild, albeit not statistically significant, improvement in most statistics was seen after the surgery.M.P. Geiss and David Portney
Now, you probably didn't come here for big Greek words that literally translate to carving of the cornea or a stats class. The last time Greek and hitting shared a sentence was when Kevin Youkilis was dubbed the Greek God of Walks.
But since hitting home runs was all Greek to Vladdy this year, especially at Rogers Centre, Jays fans might want to better understand the study's data.
Not surprisingly, the average performance of the 44 hitters studied from 1996-2022 dipped the year prior to the LASIK surgery, though not by nearly as much as Guerrero's. And while the hitters' performance did recover somewhat the year after the surgery, the recovery was not statistically significant and did not return to the level of two years prior to the surgery.
Interestingly, hitters' strikeout and walk rates changed very little before and after surgery. Vladdy's two biggest problems this year were a chase rate that increased from 21.5% (89th percentile per Baseball Savant) to 30.6% (42nd percentile) and a barrel rate that went from 12.2% to just 6.9%.
The surprising finding in the study was that the surgery helped slugging more than it helped plate discipline, at least in terms of walks and strikeouts.
Statistic | 2 Years Before LASIK - 2025 | Season Before LASIK - 2026 | Year After LASIK | % of Drop Recovered After Surgery |
|---|---|---|---|---|
BA | ..272 | .262 | .268 | 60% |
SLG | .450 | .431 | .443 | 55% |
OPS | .797 | .770 | .782 | 44% |
wRC+ | 110.27 | 102.11 | 104.69 | 32% |
wOBA | .345 | .336 | .337 | 11% |
BB% | 9.6% | 10% | 9.3 | n/a |
K% | 17.9 | 17.9% | 18.0% | n/a |
The hitters' average age at surgery was 27, the same age as Guerrero. Let's apply the average recovery percentages from the right column of the prior table to project what Guerrero's 2027 season would look like if he recovered the same way. The authors did not share the difference in home runs so as an estimation we will use the recovery in SLG%.
Statistic | Vladdy 2 Years Before LASIK - 2025 | Vladdy 1 Year Before LASIK - 2026 | % of Drop Receovered After Surgery | Vladdy 1 Year After LASIK - 2027 Proj. |
|---|---|---|---|---|
BA | .292 | .260 | 60% | .279 |
SLG | .467 | .356 | 55% | .427 |
OPS | .848 | .688 | 44% | .758 |
wRC+ | 137 | 95 | 32% | 108 |
wOBA | .366 | .305 | 11% | .312 |
HR's (using SLG recovery %) | 23 | 9 | 55% | 17 |
Of course, LASIK doesn't exist in a vacuum.
Hitters often regress to their previous career means after a down year, and they are also one year older.
Guerero's struggles this year might have been more attributable to playing with a bad back and suffering from anxiety and depression, rather than his eyesight. There has also been very little information about the type of surgery Guerrero had or how bad his vision was before the surgery.
Vladimir Guerrero Jr. underwent successful laser vision correction surgery pic.twitter.com/rf9Jw5AVDD
— Punchoutpitch (@Punchoutpitch) October 10, 2026
Still, when facing 100 mph fastballs and devastating spin on the regular, and having around a quarter of a second to make and execute on a swing decision, it certainly can't hurt to have better vision.
The Optimistic Scenario
The player who credited LASIK with the biggest impact on his performance was catcher Wilson Ramos, who underwent the surgery before the 2016 season and became a first-time All-Star, raising his OPS from .616 to .850. He mentions swinging at everything before the surgery and seeing far better after the surgery.
Some fans might also point to the improvement the Dodgers' Max Muncy saw last season right after getting glasses. Muncy, however, is not the right comp. Muncy had near-perfect acuity and corrected a one-eye astigmatism with glasses. He also made some swing adjustments. Laser surgery that corrects a broader refractive error is a different intervention.
All eyes will be on Guerrero when the 2027 season begins, especially after his comments about his contract.
He will try to put a difficult 2026 behind him and look ahead. He will have better vision when he does so.
Whether that helps him at the plate remains to be seen.
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Adam Steinmetz writes about the Toronto Blue Jays for On SI. Adam is also the editor and publisher of the Boston Sunday Sports Section, a weekly digital publication covering the Patriots, Red Sox, Celtics, and Bruins. A two-time winner of the Best Collegiate Sports Writer award in Philadelphia, he began his career with freelance work for The Philadelphia Daily News and The Palm Beach Post before building a successful career outside of journalism. He returned to sports writing last year, contributing to Pitcher List—including coverage of the Toronto Blue Jays—before launching Authorenticity on Substack, where he explores the human stories within baseball. The Boston Sunday Sports Section is his most ambitious project — the thinking fan’s modern Sunday Sports Section focused on the Patriots, Red Sox, Celtics, and Bruins.