Vladimir Guerrero Jr. wasn’t in the same prestigious echelon as Aaron Judge, Bobby Witt Jr. or Juan Soto this year, but he’ll likely finish within the top 5 of American League voting when all is said and done.

Through his first 76 games of the season, Vladdy slashed .277/.363/.401 with 8 home runs. Those are good numbers, but miles from what’s expected of a hitter in Guerrero’s pedigree. Then he turned on “God mode” and raked for the rest of the season.

There were highs and lows, but let’s look back on the season that was for Guerrero.

Heading into the 2024 campaign, Guerrero had a lot to prove. Coming off a down year in 2023, all eyes were on him and Bo Bichette to bring this team back to the promised land. And to also help fans forget how the team crashed and burned so epically in the American League Wild Card series.

Most fans were in the camp of labelling Bichette as the cornerstone of this franchise, not Guerrero. With two full seasons left until their impending free agency, one couldn’t help but wade into the conjecture about which of these players the franchise should hang their hat on.

Much like Bichette, Guerrero had a tough start to the season. By the end of May, Vladdy had five home runs to his name, which was a worrying trend for the best hitter on the Blue Jays. In May, he posted 28 singles, the highest single month total of his career.

The strange thing was he was producing high exit velocity numbers, but the results weren’t translating on the field. It’s the same thing that’s ailed Guerrero during many junctures in his career, hammering the ball into the ground at an obscene rate, despite elite hard hit rates.

An interesting trend emerged where he was pulling the ball less and shooting the ball up the middle and opposite more, but was not producing his signature hard hit extra base hits. Instead, they were rocket singles to the outfield.

76 games is an arbitrary endpoint to choose as the turning point for Guerrero’s season, but from June 22 until the end of the season, he went off. By mid-June, he dug himself out of the hole he created early in the season, but then he ratcheted things up to a whole new level just as the first half of the season came to a close.

It started during the tail end of that road trip and Cleveland and extended over to the next two series against the Red Sox and Yankees. Over his next seven games, he clubbed 5 home runs, 6 doubles and put the cherry on top by being named the AL Player of the Week on June 29.

Although his cache and track record made him a starter at the All-Star Game, his play at the end of June and heading into the Midsummer Classic removed any shadow of a doubt whether he belonged to be there.

We’ve been privy to magical stretches in the past, but what he unfurled in the back half of the 2024 season was arguably the best stretch of his career. Month by month, he cut his ground ball rate and finally started punishing balls into the gap and over the fence.

He also had a dramatic shift in his approach, going from a “swing early and often” hitter to a much more selective hitter at the plate. Guerrero went from a 41.1% first pitch swing rate hitter in 2023 to a 27.4% first pitch swing rate hitter, a cut of 14%.

To his credit, Vladdy made the adjustment after he made a habit out of swinging at first pitch slop and became a much more selective hitter. He worked more counts, saw more pitches and attacked his “happy places” against opposing pitchers.

Thanks to another unreal stretch at the end of July, Guerrero won his second Player of the Week Award on August 3. That week he slashed .536/.606/.606 with 3 home runs and 7 doubles, pulling in 15 hits over a 7-game span.

Vladdy’s most impressive single game performance this past season was that second half of the double header against the Orioles in Baltimore when he hit 3 doubles and 1 home run. The dude was on fire that night and reached base in 5 of his 6 plate appearances.

His heater tailed off as the season dwindled, but it’s incredible to think he went from a .277 batting average on June 22 to finishing second in the American League batting title race with a .323 AVG and was one hit shy of becoming the sixth player in Blue Jays franchise history to collect 200+ hits in a regular season.

Despite not reaching that milestone, Guerrero’s performance this season still deserves high praise. While the home run totals weren’t on par with his breakout 2021 campaign, many of his numbers from this past year were comparable to that 2nd place AL MVP year.

With his stellar performance this season, Guerrero rewrote the narrative about whether his 2021 season was an outlier. Despite a slow start to the season, he proved why he should be the next franchise player for the Blue Jays.

He answered a lot of questions about his ceiling as a player, and heading into his age 26 season, there’s potential for him to get even better in 2025 and beyond. While it feels like fans have come to grips with the organization pushing Bichette out the door, there will be a colossal wave of unrest in Toronto if Guerrero leaves as a free agent at the end of next year.

If ever there was a window to get a contract extension done, this winter feels like the opportunity for the Blue Jays to lock in Guerrero before his asking price gets into the Soto or Shohei Ohtani range.

There’s always going to be a lot of risk in committing big money and term to one player, but if there’s one guy the Blue Jays should do it for, it’s Vladdy.