Vladimir Guerrero Jr.’s 2025 season wasn’t just about a power dip. The full line told an even harsher story.
He finished at .260/.332/.356 in 144 games and 609 plate appearances, and that .356 slugging percentage placed him sixth on the Blue Jays’ all-time list of lowest slugging marks for a hitter with at least 600 plate appearances in a season. That puts him one point behind Mookie Wilson, who posted a .355 mark at age 34 in 1990.
What makes Guerrero Jr.’s place on that list stand out is the company. Using Stathead, the only hitter on the list with at least one 25-homer season is Guerrero Jr. himself. Alex Gonzalez is the only other player there with a 20-homer season, which came with the Cubs in 2003, when he hit a personal best of 20 at age 30.
That’s why this season lands so differently for Guerrero Jr. than it would for a typical contact hitter. He has five seasons with at least 25 home runs, two with at least 30, and one monster year with 48 homers in 2021.
So when the power vanished, it wasn’t just a quiet downturn. It was a sharp break from the kind of production that defined his profile.
The monthly splits show how long the slump lingered. Guerrero Jr. opened in March/April with a 158 wRC+, two home runs, 15 RBIs and a .354/.438/.469 line with a .907 OPS.
After that, he never got back above .400 slugging until September. He fell below .300 in May (.284), June (.264) and August (.299), and in no other month - while playing at least 19 games in each - did he homer more than twice or drive in more than 10 runs.
By the time the season was winding down, the wait for the power surge had become part of the story. Guerrero Jr. was not the same hitter who led Toronto with eight home runs in 18 games during the 2025 postseason, and through 135 games and 568 plate appearances, he still had not gone past eight homers.
Jonah Birenbaum, Senior Editor of The Score, highlighted just how unusual the final numbers were on X:
"Vladimir Guerrero Jr. finishes his season with a .260/.332/.356 line in 144 games (609 plate appearances).Only five players in Blue Jays history have received 600+ PA's in a season and produced a lower slugging percentage. pic.twitter.com/und1gX8Q0i"
There were other odd comparisons buried in the numbers, too. Simpson, who did not hit a home run in 612 plate appearances all season, matched Guerrero Jr.’s slugging percentage while collecting 34 more hits, including six triples.
Simpson has now piled up 1,053 major league plate appearances since debuting with the Rays without a home run. Even inside Toronto’s own lineup, rookie Brett Bateman finished ahead of Guerrero Jr. with a .424 slugging percentage in 181 plate appearances.
Guerrero Jr. also set career lows in batting average (.260), on-base percentage (.332) and OPS (.688). For the second straight year, he hit only five home runs with runners in scoring position.
The Blue Jays had plenty of issues beyond Guerrero Jr., from injuries and absences to uneven stretches from George Springer, Andres Gimenez - who went 41 games without a home run - and Jesus Sanchez. Still, Guerrero Jr.’s lost power left a lot of offense on the table, and that kind of production gap can change the shape of a season.
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