After crushing a home run in his first plate appearance of the series at Rogers Centre, Vlad Jr. never looked back, homering in the first three games of the series and posting a .529/.550/1.059 slash line with nine hits and nine RBIs in four games. The Blue Jays thoroughly dominated in the ALDS, winning in four games and advancing to the ALCS to face the Mariners, and Vlad Jr. was a huge reason why.
After homering just twice in the final month of the regular season — his last homer came on Sept. 5 — Guerrero has seemingly found his power stroke at the optimal time. Here are five key numbers that explain Vlad Jr.’s red-hot start to the postseason and why it could create a path for Toronto to reach the World Series.
1. Sizable increase in bat speed
There was nothing fluky about Guerrero’s otherworldly performance in the ALDS. Yes, we’re dealing with a sample of four games, but Guerrero’s bat-tracking metrics make it clear just how locked in he was throughout the series.
Guerrero in the regular season vs. ALDS
Bat speed: 76.7 mph vs. 78.6 mph (MLB postseason average: 71.9 mph)
Fast swing rate: 67.7% vs. 86.2% (MLB postseason average: 24.2%)
Guerrero is swinging the bat nearly 2 mph faster in the playoffs, which is saying something: His 76.7 mph bat speed in the regular season ranked in the 97th percentile. As a result, a whopping 86.2 percent of his swings are classified as fast, which is any swing of at least 75 mph. Among the 94 hitters with at least 10 competitive swings this postseason, Guerrero easily ranks first in both categories, including by 11.8 percentage points over second-place Aaron Judge in the latter.
Why does that matter? During the regular season, Major League hitters batted .313 and slugged .631 on fast swings, compared with .230 and .335 on swings below that threshold. For Guerrero, eight of his nine postseason hits, including all three of his homers, have come on fast swings.
The fact that Guerrero is swinging harder but also has shaved his whiff rate by 8.2 percentage points from the regular season is all the more remarkable. His 21.5 percent whiff rate in the regular season was comfortably above the league average (68th percentile), but a 13.3 percent whiff rate is truly elite. (During the regular season, it would have put him in the 95th percentile, alongside contact-oriented players such as Brendan Donovan and Jung Hoo Lee.) The sheer amount of contact led to just one strikeout in the ALDS.
This combination should sound the alarm bells for Mariners pitchers. Vlad Jr. and the Blue Jays offense put up a staggering 34 runs in four games in the ALDS against the Yankees, a staff that finished the regular season with similar numbers as the staff Seattle boasts.
For years, Guerrero has seen his power numbers fluctuate from generational to merely great on a year-to-year basis. A key aspect of that power volatility stems from him hitting more grounders than the average power hitter. For reference, Guerrero’s career 48.4 percent ground ball rate is a good deal higher than the league’s 44.2 percent ground ball rate in that time.
When Vlad Jr. is in one of his grooves, he’s getting his hard-hit contact in the air, which we’re seeing on full display right now. During the regular season, 52.9 percent of Guerrero’s batted balls were hit in the air (fly balls, line drives and pop-ups). In the postseason, 12 of Guerrero’s 17 batted balls have been hit in the air, good for a 70.6 percent airball rate. That puts him tied for 10th among 61 postseason hitters (minimum 10 batted balls).
Guerrero slugged .926 on fly balls and line drives in 2025, compared with .264 on grounders. So if he is hitting the ball not only hard, but also up, it’s trouble for opponents.
4. Crushing fastballs and changeups
Another indicator that Guerrero is locked in is the damage he’s done against multiple pitches.
Most of his damage in the Division Series came against fastballs. In 13 plate appearances ending in fastballs, Guerrero recorded seven of his nine hits of the series, including a grand slam in Game 2 against a fastball from Will Warren. Guerrero had three hits (including the home run) against four-seamers, one against a sinker and went 3-for-3 against cutters.
It’s hardly surprising that Guerrero is crushing fastballs. The Blue Jays star owns a career .530 slugging percentage against fastballs and he finished the 2025 season with a +27 Run Value against fastballs, tied for seventh-best in the Majors.
Vlad Jr. also bashed two of his three home runs against changeups: one against Luis Gil in his first plate appearance of the series and another to begin Game 3 at Yankee Stadium against Carlos Rodón. This one’s a little more surprising than the fastball dominance, considering that Guerrero only had one home run against changeups the entire regular season.
5. Breaking ball usage and Seattle’s potential approach against Vlad
Guerrero only saw breaking balls 12.7 percent of the time in the ALDS, perhaps a surprising fact considering he “only” had a .734 OPS against those pitches in the regular season. Yankees pitchers, however, boasted the third-lowest breaking ball rate of any staff in the regular season, which tracks considering how many of them throw excellent offspeed pitches.
That brings us to how Mariners pitchers may approach pitching to Vlad Jr. in the ALCS. During the regular season, Seattle pitchers boasted the fourth-highest fastball rate in the Majors (59.5 percent).
Other than Logan Gilbert (37.7 percent fastball usage), every Mariners starter that could start in the ALCS relied heavily on fastballs. Bryan Woo (72.8 percent), Luis Castillo (68.2 percent), Bryce Miller (58.6 percent) and George Kirby (55.6 percent) were all comfortably over 50 percent. Mariners relievers, too, threw fastballs at a 59 percent clip during the regular season. Obviously, you want your pitchers to pitch to their strengths, but there might need to be some adjustments against Guerrero in this series.
It’s clear that the Blue Jays slugger is locked in, so proceeding with caution and perhaps pitching around him sounds plausible enough. The issue, though, is Guerrero was hardly the only Blue Jays hitter to put on a big show in the Division Series.
Ernie Clement had nine hits and a home run. Daulton Varsho crushed two home runs and had three doubles. Seven Blue Jays hitters (including Guerrero) had at least four hits in four games against the Yankees. A key reason why the Blue Jays are in this spot is they received offensive contributions from so many players this season.
That being said, Vlad Jr. really set the tone in the ALDS win over the Yankees. If the Mariners are wise, they’ll do anything in their power to ensure Guerrero isn’t the one beating them and sending Toronto to the World Series.
