Minors Player of Year:
3B combines skills, instincts
At 19, this son of a Hall of Famer has shown uncanny baseball smarts on top of spectacular numbers during his 2018 rise.
Vladimir Guerrero Jr. can surely hit, but the measure of a baseball player includes things that have nothing to do with hitting. Bobby Meacham, the manager of the Class AAA Buffalo (New York) Bisons, studied the contours of Guerrero’s game the first three weeks the 19-year-old third baseman was in Buffalo. He has seen Guerrero exhibit a veteran’s shrewdness.
So when Meacham’s wife asked him how players such as Guerrero move so swiftly through the minors, Meacham said, “The answer is simple. They know the game. Managers don’t want guys at higher levels that don’t know what they’re doing.”
It is obvious Guerrero knows what he is doing, and his allaround display in 2018 has earned him our USA TODAY Minor League Player of the Year award, which is based on voting from our panel of writers and editors as well as readers. Guerrero was hitting .382 for the 2018 season, which included 61 games at Class AA (Manchester) New Hampshire (where he hit .402 with a 1.120 on-base plus slugging percentage) and 29 games entering the week at Buffalo.
Less obvious than his bat, Meacham said, is Guerrero’s awareness, which is why he was on the doorstep of a big-league debut just 2½ seasons into his professional career. The manager first noticed the intricacies of Guerrero’s game July 31, which marked Guerrero’s debut in Class AAA.
In the bottom of the first inning, the player nicknamed “Vladdy” was pitched carefully and then took a walk on a 3-2 count. The next batter, Danny Jansen, hit a hard single to left field. Meacham, who was in the third-base coaching box, saw Guerrero run hard to second base, then hesitate for an instant to read the play. Meacham, in the corner of his eye, saw what Guerrero saw. The left fielder slowed to the ball. Guerrero sprinted for third and beat the throw. The alert Jansen took second on the throw. Two runners were in scoring position.
It was not free form or reckless. To Meacham, Guerrero had mapped his strategies while at first base.
“He saw the outfielder slow up, go down real slow, and he took third, which made me think that this kid had already thought through that scenario, it’s the only way you can go from first to third on a hard single to left field,” Meacham said. “‘If a ball is hit here, here, and here, I’m going to go to third based on this, this, and this.’
“It was important for him to make a first impression, as if to say, ‘Hey, Skip, I can do more than hit.’ ”
Meacham, who played all or part of six seasons in the big leagues with the Yankees, smiled and said, “It’s not as if he is Willie McGee, either. He’s a big guy. When you see a guy that pays attention to baserunning, that’s a guy that cares about winning. Baserunning turns you from ‘me’ to ‘we.’ That was impressive.”
In another game, there was a runner on third with fewer than two outs, and Guerrero played defense behind the bag. The Bisons had a two-run lead. Behind the runner’s back, Guerrero pointed to the catcher as if to say, “I’m coming home with it if I get a ground ball.” Sure enough, Guerrero got a chopper. The runner, who is usually going to run home with a third baseman playing back, took off for home. The catcher was already lined up expecting the throw.
“He was out by 30 feet,” Meacham said. “It saved a run. The runner thought we were going to concede the run.”
On the issue of his defense, Guerrero scowled when it was mentioned that Toronto is an American League team and the designated hitter role is in play for him. He is 6-1 and says he weighs 240 pounds. He looks like a masher, not a lithe defender at third.
Meacham said the kid is not going to be a DH.
“I see his footwork and how he moves to make the plays and his arm strength, and there is no doubt he can play third base,” the Buffalo manager said. “He is moving better than guys smaller than him. The first step is huge for the third baseman, and we keep track of his improvement with video, and you can see his progress.”
Given he speaks to reporters through his interpreter, catcher Michael De La Cruz, it’s difficult to have a flowing conversation with Guerrero unless you speak Spanish. Still, you catch glimpses of a player with a sense of humor, humility and duty to the game. Guerrero doesn’t reveal much about himself,
but just enough.
A reporter used the word “pressure” and “Pops” in a ques-
tion, a reference to his father, Vladimir Guerrero, who was inducted into the National Baseball Hall of Fame in August. Before De La Cruz could interpret, the young Guerrero recognized the word “pressure” and shook his head, “No.” There was no pressure because of his father’s reputation.
Here was the most revealing tidbit. Vladimir Guerrero Sr. did not drag Vladdy to the batting cage as a child. “I just watch. No teach, just watch,” Guerrero told De La Cruz. “I learn from him.”
Vladimir was born in Montreal when his father played for the Expos. He is a Canadian citizen but played his baseball as a youngster in the Dominican Republic. He was frequently in the Angels clubhouse when Vlad Sr. was with Anaheim, and his dad, or uncles, or teammates would toss him baseballs. The swing, with the trademark Guerrero finish, comes naturally.
Vlad hit his first home run in a big-league-sized park in the Dominican when he was 12. Four years later, the Blue Jays signed him as an international free agent to a $3.9 million contract.
The reporter started to ask about Vladimir Sr.’s legendary arm, which could one-bounce a throw to the plate from the right-field corner, and Vladdy understood and quickly said, “No,” he doesn’t have his father’s arm. And he smiled. “English getting better,” he said, in English.
His grandmother is with him in Buffalo to cook meals and do his laundry and counsel him. He was asked if he had to play ball overseas. “She go with me, Australia, China, Japan,” he told De La Cruz. “Wherever.”
What about the hitting?
His bat speed was revealed on a foul ball during a recent game at the Gwinnett (Georgia) Stripers. Right-handed-hitting Guerrero had a one-ball, two strike count and was looking offspeed, but the pitch, an inside fastball, fooled him. The ball was on top of the plate when he realized this could be a called strike three and he threw his hands forward. Guerrero still hit the ball above the handle the other way and the foul ball almost skulled on-deck hitter Anthony Alford.
“I played college baseball with Tony Gwynn; I played in the majors with Don Mattingly. And those two guys, great hitters, just had more time than me,” Meacham said.
What he meant was Gwynn and Mattingly could move their hands so quickly that they had a longer time to react on a pitch after it broke (curve) or stuck in the strike zone (fastball). Guerrero has that fast of a bat, Meacham said.
“If you have good bat speed, you eliminate a lot of worry,” Meacham said.
Guerrero is hard to come in on, Meacham said, because of those hands. That also means he covers more of the plate.
Does Guerrero believe in launch angles? He shakes his head from side to side as the question is recited back to him in Spanish.
“He goes and puts the bat on the ball; wherever it goes, it goes,” De La Cruz said.
It is a similar skill to that of his father, a career .318 hitter who had 449 big-league homers.
The younger Guerrero hits to all fields, another reason for his high batting average. During his second week in Class AAA, he hit four home runs on four consecutive days, and the homers were sprayed to different parts of the field: left, left center, right center, right.
“His swing is not complicated,” Meacham said, “and he hits the ball hard.”
In his first 11 games with the Bisons, Guerrero had 15 hits in 34 at-bats with four homers. In his next six games, he was 5for-25 with no extra-base hits. In late August, he had cooled again, and Toronto might need to see if he can play with more consistency before promoting him to the big leagues. He was listed on preliminary rosters for the prospect-laden Arizona Fall League, which begins Oct. 9.
Guerrero doesn’t turn into a guess hitter while he scuffles, Meacham said. In Class AA, he might get two pitches to hit each at-bat. In Class AAA, it is more like one, sometimes two. Guerrero is staying patient, Meacham said, not chasing.
Guerrero still hit .340 with a .985 OPS in his first 108 Class AAA at-bats. He won’t win any batting crowns because he missed five weeks with a strained patellar tendon in a knee, and he wouldn’t qualify.
But his overall numbers between Classes AA and AAA are staggering: .382 average, 1.077 OPS, 20 homers, 78 RBI, 67 runs, 225 total bases.
His promotion to Buffalo was greeted by trumpets across the border. Blue Jays fans flocked south two hours to Buffalo to watch their future third baseman’s debut. A normal Tuesday night crowd at Coca-Cola Field is 5,400. There were 9,400 paid the night Vladdy suited up for the Bisons.
So when does he suit up for the Jays? “Not in my control,” he says through De La Cruz.
With the Blue Jays out of contention, it might not be 2018. But considering his devotion to the game, it is not going to be a long wait for Toronto fans.