The Toronto Blue Jays can wake up from their bad dream now.
The 2026 MLB regular season is over. They’re staying home. They won’t get a chance to defend their American League pennant. And whatever the heck you want to call this Vladimir Guerrero Jr. nightmare can now end.
Sure, there’s no telling what comes in seasons ahead.
But for now, it’s got to be good enough for Toronto sports fans to look somewhere else, to think about something else, to not worry about how it’s possible that Guerrero was having one of the worst power-hitting downturns that baseball has seen in a long time.
The Blue Jays were supposed to contend for the World Series.
In the end, they were eliminated from AL Wild Card contention with four days to go in the season.
They stuck around, sort of, but it never really felt like this team was going anywhere.
And that’s because their $500 million man, Vladdy, never figured it out.
Vladimir Guerrero Jr. Season Stats
Nothing about Guerrero’s 2026 season makes sense.
He finished the year with a .260 batting average. That’s the lowest in a season for his career.
He finished the year with a .332 on-base percentage. That’s his second-lowest ever.
His slugging percentage was .356. That’s his lowest-ever by 77 points.
His OPS was a totally pedestrian .688, again a career-low.
Guerrero ended the year with 25 doubles, the fewest he’s had in a season beside the shortened 2020 campaign.
He concluded the year with just nine home runs — which equals the amount he had in playing 60 games in that 2020 season.
Guerrero drove in 57 runs, his lowest outside of 2020.
Truly, this was the worst season Guerrero has ever had.
In the end, he hit one singular homer at Rogers Centre, the Blue Jays’ home ballpark, in 73 games.
Vladdy Contract
Guerrero was paid $40.26 million to play this season for the Blue Jays.
It was the first year his 14-year contract extension took effect. It’ll pay him $500 million over the life of the deal.
Guerrero is just 27, so it seems he should turn it around. But if for some reason he didn’t, it would have potential to be one of the worst deals ever.
You Can’t Predict Baseball
Baseball, more than any other sport, has a feeling about it that it can sometimes just surprise you.
Normally, that takes place on a small scale, in a one-game sample size.
For Guerrero, it was the whole season.
For much of the year, he hit the ball hard, but it wasn’t in the air. His swing was just a little off.
And in playing consistently for the Blue Jays, it’s like Guerrero never figured out how to turn his swing around.
The Blue Jays needed better, and they count on Guerrero to be the guy that picks them up when others are slumping, not the other way around.
There were a lot of moments this season when an at bat ended and Guerrero just walked slowly back to the dugout, looking off into the distance, seeming to wonder what in the world was happening to him at the plate.
That’s what everyone was wondering in the midst of this season-long nightmare.
And surely everyone is hoping the bad dream gets washed away in the offseason and comes back with some more pleasant scenes.
Blue Jays’ Vladimir Guerrero Jr. Nightmare Is Over