To be honest, at first glance, it looks like a mistake, but it was real:

.332 OBP, .356 SLG, 9 HR - Vladimir Guerrero Jr.

.333 OBP, .356 SLG, 0 HR - Chandler Simpson

Can you believe it? Well, yes. Even without hitting a home run in 612 plate appearances throughout the entire regular season this year, Simpson produced the same slugging percentage as Guerrero Jr., surpassing him in his own way with 34 more hits, which included six triples. Simpson has accumulated 1,053 plate appearances since arriving in the Major Leagues with the Tampa Bay Rays without hitting a home run.

So, seeing Guerrero Jr.’s power decline and his production not even being enough to surpass Simpson is even more disappointing than simply seeing his decline in home runs. If we make the comparison only within the Blue Jays’ lineup, we can see rookie Brett Bateman also surpassing Guerrero Jr. with a .424 slugging percentage in a sample of 181 plate appearances.

These problems did not begin at the start of the season. Guerrero Jr. posted a 158 wRC+ in March/April, with two home runs, 15 RBIs and a hot offensive line of .354/.438/.469 with a .907 OPS. He did not surpass .400 slugging again throughout the campaign, falling below .300 in May (.284), June (.264), and August (.299), until he returned to a .400 slugging percentage in September.

In no other month—and he played at least 19 games in each of them—did he hit more than two home runs or drive in more than 10 runs.

If you were a Blue Jays follower all year, you will remember that the narrative around Guerrero Jr.’s power became an apparently endless wait for the streak that never came. Vladdy was not the Vladdy who led Toronto with eight home runs in 18 games during the 2025 postseason, and until his 135th game, with 568 plate appearances, he couldn't surpass the mark of eight home runs.

A Season Going in the Opposite Direction

Recently, Jonah Birenbaum, Senior Editor of The Score, published this very interesting list on X.

As you can see, here are the hitters in Toronto history with the lowest slugging percentage and at least 600 plate appearances. Guerrero Jr. is the sixth hitter in the ranking with a .356 slugging percentage, just one point behind Mookie Wilson, who hit .355 at age 34 in 1990. With the help of Stathead, I investigated a little more, and here is the most interesting point I found: Guerrero Jr. is the only hitter on the list with at least one 25-home-run season.

Alex Gonzalez is the only other hitter on the list with a 20-home-run season, his personal best with the Cubs at age 30 in 2003.

Vladdy has five seasons with at least 25 home runs, two with at least 30 and one with more than 40, when he hit 48 home runs in 2021. So this decline in home runs and slugging is much more concerning when it comes to a hitter with Vladdy’s history than players like Yunel Escobar, Mookie Wilson or Bob Bailor, who were characterized throughout their careers as contact hitters.

Guerrero Jr. also posted the worst marks of his career in batting average at .260, on-base percentage (.332) and OPS (.688), in addition to the fact that, for the second consecutive year, he hit only five home runs with runners in scoring position.

It is clear that it is a team game, and the Blue Jays went through many struggles, from injuries and absences to prolonged inconsistencies like those of George Springer, Andres Gimenez—he went 41 games without hitting a home run—and Jesus Sanchez. But Vladdy’s loss of power undoubtedly left plenty of plate appearances on the table; the Blue Jays’ chances of winning could have changed.