Toronto Blue Jays

Major League Baseball suspended Toronto Blue Jays pitcher Alek Manoah five games and fined him after he threw at Maikel Franco during Saturday's contest against the Baltimore Orioles.

Shi Davidi of Sportsnet shared the announcement that also revealed Blue Jays manager Charlie Montoyo was suspended for one game. Montoyo will serve his suspension during Tuesday's game against the Miami Marlins, but Manoah will appeal his punishment:

MLB suspends Alek Manoah for five games and Charlie Montoyo for one. Manoah is appealing and discipline is being held in abeyance until a hearing occurs, while Montoyo serves tonight. pic.twitter.com/qoMxU7ljqm

— Shi Davidi (@ShiDavidi) June 22, 2021

As ESPN noted, Manoah hit Franco on the left shoulder immediately after allowing back-to-back home runs to Ryan Mountcastle and DJ Stewart. 

The benches and bullpens emptied onto the field, although nobody threw any punches. The umpires still ejected Manoah for the pitch.

"I tried to get that fastball in, and it slipped away," the right-hander said. "I was confused by his reaction. I was questioning, 'What's going on? What's wrong?' Those were my hand gestures as I was walking toward him. I didn't understand the frustration there."

Manoah, 23, has appeared in five games for the Blue Jays this season and has a 4.18 ERA, 1.14 WHIP and 27 strikeouts in 23.2 innings. Franco is slashing .212/.254/.377 with nine home runs and 38 RBI this season.

Toronto is 37-37 on the campaign and in fourth place in the American League East. The Orioles are in last place at 23-49.

The division rivals are scheduled to face each other again for a four-game series starting on Thursday.  

There's a long way still to go, yet Vladimir Guerrero Jr. is making it easy to dream big about the company he might keep by the end of the 2021 Major League Baseball season.

After two good-not-great seasons with the Toronto Blue Jays in 2019 and 2020, the 22-year-old is making a mockery of opposing pitchers by way of a .337 batting average and MLB-leading marks with:

• 23 HR
• 59 RBI
• 169 TB
• .440 OBP
• 1.111 OPS
• 202 OPS+
• 3.8 rWAR

Oh, and he's also leading the American League with a .671 slugging percentage.

As he peaked with a 162 OPS+ in 2000 and 7.4 rWAR in 1998, even Guerrero's Hall of Fame father arguably never had a season like the one his son is having. 

But then, that's nothing to be ashamed of. Because if he stays on this pace, Vladimir Jr. will end up with numbers few others have reached.

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The History within Vlad's Reach

Because he already leads the AL in home runs and runs batted in and is also second to Michael Brantley (.350) in batting average, Guerrero has a shot at baseball's Triple Crown.

If he gets it done, it would mark the 28th Triple Crown season—periodic reminder that the Negro Leagues are now rightfully represented as major leagues—and only the second such winner in the last 54 years. It would be just him and Miguel Cabrera, who achieved the feat amid an MVP season in 2012.

One issue with the Triple Crown, though, is that it measures a hitter's offensive prowess not relative to his historical peers but to that of his contemporaries. Between this and the awkwardly arbitrary nature of judging a hitter strictly by his average, homers and RBI, the Triple Crown is frankly more of an oddity than anything else.

It's more instructive, for example, to point out that Guerrero could become only the 23rd player in modern history to finish with a .330/.440/.650 batting line. And since Juan Soto achieved his .351/.490/.695 line last season in only 47 games, Guerrero would be the first to do so over a full season since Albert Pujols slashed .357/.462/.653 in 2008.

Mind you, baseball's offensive environment has changed a lot since 2008. The average line that year was .264/.333/.416, compared to .239/.313/.400 in 2021. Because that's life when strikeouts are historically prevalent and teams have mastered infield shifts.

As it adjusts for offensive environments and park factors, this is where OPS+ is helpful. And if Guerrero can keep his OPS+ over 200 for the full season, he would be the first to do so since Barry Bonds ended the 2004 campaign with an absurd 263 OPS+.

What would makes things even more interesting, however, is if Guerrero stays on his home run pace.

Because he's hit 23 homers while playing in all 70 of Toronto's games, Guerrero is hitting 0.33 homers per game and therefore on a 162-game pace for 53 home runs. If he gets there, he'd claim just the fifth 50-homer season in the last decade.

He could cross the 50-homer threshold while also maintaining his 200 OPS+. That particular club has only six players in it—and no new members since Bonds and Sammy Sosa joined in 2001.

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Where Did This Version of Vlad Come From?

Because Guerrero comes from baseball royalty and had hit .331/.414/.531 in the minors, it was perhaps inevitable that he would become baseball's hottest hitter.

But to get to this point, he basically had to reinvent himself.

Though Guerrero hardly embarrassed himself as he slashed .269/.336/.442 with a 109 OPS+ in his first two seasons, there were things he clearly needed to do better to live up to the hype that accompanied him when he arrived as baseball's No. 1 prospect.

For starters, he simply needed to get in better shape. And while he clearly had a knack for avoiding strikeouts and generating exit velocity, the former didn't come paired with a talent for drawing walks, while too much of the latter went to waste on the ground.

As if on cue, Guerrero got serious and dropped pounds by the dozens between the end of the 2020 season and the start of the 2021 campaign. The slimmer version of him is undoubtedly better, specifically to the extent that his swing is quicker and more explosive.

It's the kind of difference that you can just, you know, see.

Yet this difference can also be quantified, including with regard to how Guerrero has improved an already sturdy performance against fastballs:

• 2019: .306 AVG, .478 SLG
• 2020: .272 AVG, .472 SLG
• 2021: .399 AVG, .746 SLG

The youngster's strike-zone judgment, meanwhile, now resembles that of a more experienced player in how he's attacking good pitches while letting the bad ones go:

Practically speaking, this has allowed Guerrero to bring his walk percentage (14.3) into closer proximity with his strikeout rate (16.7). It's also a factor behind yet another upward shift in his average exit velocity, which is now in the 99th percentile at 94.8 mph.

The catch should be that Guerrero's average launch angle is still in single digits, but that's misleading. He's doing a much better job of launching balls in the sweet spot, and fly balls and line drives account for a career-high 47.8 percent of his batted balls.

It all adds up to a .437 xwOBA that, like many of his results, is the best mark in MLB. Which is to say: Yeah, Guerrero really is that good right now. 

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Ah, But Can He Avoid the Bellinger Fade?

There is, of course, an obvious problem with projecting Guerrero's numbers after 70 games. He still has 92 games to go, and those won't necessarily look anything like his first 70.

For an appropriate cautionary tale, one only needs to look back to 2019 to find Cody Bellinger.

Like Guerrero has in 2021, the Los Angeles Dodgers star got off to a rip-roaring start with a .355/.452/.701 line and 23 home runs through 70 games. But while he still captured the National League MVP Award, he cooled as he slashed .264/.368/.570 with 24 homers through the end of the season.

Contrary to what one might think, the writing wasn't on the wall that Bellinger was bound to come back down to earth like that. His xwOBA through those first 70 games was a whopping .476. That was 16 points higher than his wOBA at the time, not to mention 39 points north of where Guerrero is now.

But if there are reasons to believe that Guerrero can avoid a similar slide, they start with how he's trending in the opposition direction as Bellinger was then.

Whereas Bellinger's results began declining after a red-hot April, the 1.240 OPS that Guerrero has in June is his best mark of the season. Likewise, his expected results are also in good shape:

As such, perhaps the bigger questions concern whether Guerrero will stay healthy—which is one for the crystal ball—and whether pitchers will continue giving him pitches to hit. On that front, he's already seeing a lesser rate of in-zone pitches in June (46.1 percent) than he did in April and May (47.0 percent).

Guerrero, though, has responded by swinging at 72.3 percent of those offerings after hacking at 71.3 percent in April and May. That's perhaps too slight a difference from which to draw conclusions, but it may indicate greater urgency on his part to try to do damage when opportunity knocks.

In any case, it's hard to find any angles from which Guerrero doesn't look totally locked in. As long as that remains the case, his historic pursuits may indeed reach historic ends.

---

Stats courtesy of Baseball Reference, FanGraphs and Baseball Savant.

The Toronto Blue Jays' Vladimir Guerrero Jr. will not take part in the 2021 Home Run Derby, the first baseman told sports broadcaster Hazel Mae.

However, he is still planning to participate in the All-Star Game at Denver's Coors Field:

Vladimir Guerrero Jr. has decided not participate at this year's Home Run Derby.

He's looking forward to being at the All Star Game in Colorado but told me he'd like to use the time to regroup, refresh mentally for the second half of the season. #BlueJays

— Hazel Mae (@thehazelmae) June 21, 2021

Guerrero currently leads MLB in WAR, OBP and OPS, per Baseball Reference. That's in addition to his MLB-high 59 RBI and 23 home runs, which are tied for the league lead with Shohei Ohtani of the Los Angeles Angels. Ohtani will be taking part in the Derby, which is slated for Monday, July 12.

Guerrero participated in the 2019 Derby when he was a rookie, reaching the final round before losing to the New York Mets' Pete Alonso. He hit 91 home runs through three rounds, including 40 in the semifinals.

The son of Baseball Hall of Famer Vladimir Guerrero hit a record 29 in the first round before doing so again in the semis. However, then-Los Angeles Dodgers (and current Chicago Cubs) outfielder Joc Pederson matched his 29 homers, forcing the semis to go to swing-offs. Guerrero won there, 40-39.

Guerrero's prodigious home run power has been nothing short of spectacular this year. Per Baseball Savant, he has the second-fastest exit velocity (94.8 mph) and seventh-strongest hard-hit rate (54.7 percent) in the bigs. His home runs are also traveling an average of 412 feet.

Fans won't get to see Guerrero tee it up at the 2021 Derby, but they'll still get to watch him in the All-Star Game, which is set for Tuesday, July 13.

As an early-season favorite for the American League MVP, Vladimir Guerrero Jr. memorabilia has seen a dramatic increase in value. 

Citing Only Alt Official, Kendall Baker of Axios noted the value of the Toronto Blue Jays star's Topps Chrome rookie card has seen a 300 percent increase in value to $209 compared to where it was at in June 2020:

Trading cards are the closest thing we have to a "stock market for athletes."

Fascinating to see a player's year-to-date performance mapped out like this.

Vlad Jr.'s base rookie card is up 300% this calendar year, per @OnlyAltOfficial. pic.twitter.com/PlkVPFwamC

— Kendall Baker (@kendallbaker) June 16, 2021

Guerrero was promoted to the big leagues as a 20-year-old in April 2019. He received a tremendous amount of hype because of his performance in the minors and as the son of 2016 Hall of Fame inductee Vladimir Guerrero. 

MLB.com ranked Guerrero as the best prospect in baseball heading into the 2019 season. He was OK during his first two seasons, posting a .269/.336/.442 slash line with 24 homers and 102 RBI in 183 games. 

Through 65 games in 2021, Guerrero has been the best hitter in baseball. He leads MLB in all three triple slash categories with a .345 batting average, .450 on-base percentage and .690 slugging percentage. His 22 homers nearly match his total from the past two seasons combined. 

Nobody in Major League Baseball has as many home runs as Vladimir Guerrero Jr.'s 22, and the Toronto Blue Jays slugger may treat fans to a show at the 2021 Home Run Derby.

Kaitlyn McGrath of The Athletic reported Guerrero is "leaning more to yes versus no" as he decides whether he will participate in the annual competition. This year's Home Run Derby is scheduled for July 12 at Coors Field in Denver.

The 22-year-old already has a career high in long balls and has also impressed in other areas with a .346/.451/.697 slash line and 56 RBI. His presence in the middle of the lineup is a major reason Toronto has a winning record at 33-31 and is in the middle of the American League wild-card race.

The Home Run Derby is nothing new for the Guerrero family.

Vladimir Guerrero, the 46-year-old father of the Blue Jays slugger, won the 2007 competition in San Francisco, which included launching a 503-foot home run.

Yet that victory and long homer may not even be the most memorable Home Run Derby moment for the Guerrero family. The younger Guerrero participated in the 2019 competition in Cleveland and was the star of the show even though he ultimately fell short of Pete Alonso.

Guerrero launched a record 29 home runs in the opening round and then followed with 29 more in the semifinals. It took a final-round record of 23 by Alonso to eclipse him by a single home run and take home the title.

What an incredible night from Vlad Jr..... Here's every home run he hit tonight. We might be here a while. pic.twitter.com/zRrCL6Kj0S

— Daren Willman (@darenw) July 9, 2019

Guerrero finished with 91 homers in the competition, which far surpassed Giancarlo Stanton's previous record of 61.

Perhaps there is an encore in store for 2021.

After two months, only one of Major League Baseball's six divisions features four teams above the .500 mark.

It's the American League East, and it's wild.

With 16 wins in their last 17 games, the reigning American League champion Tampa Bay Rays are back atop the division. Breathing down their necks are the Boston Red Sox, who are clearly determined to make up for their last-place finish in 2020.

Yet the big surprise in the AL East is the relative mediocrity of the New York Yankees. They came into the year as a presumed World Series contender and are still in that conversation, but they've been sidetracked by injuries and a wave of losses punctuated by a three-game sweep by the lowly Detroit Tigers over Memorial Day weekend.

Though the Yankees still have four months to turn their fortunes around, the seriousness of their problems and the difficulty of the road ahead don't paint a rosy picture.

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AL East Standings

1. Tampa Bay Rays, 35-20
2. Boston Red Sox, 32-21 (2.0 GB)
   
3. New York Yankees, 29-25 (5.5 GB)
   
4. Toronto Blue Jays, 27-25 (6.5 GB)
   
5. Baltimore Orioles, 17-37 (17.5 GB)
   

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The Yankees Are Banged Up and Lack Bang on Offense

On Opening Day, FanGraphs pegged the Yankees' chances of winning the AL East at a sturdy 71.0 percent. Even as recently as May 12, they were still as high as 67.8 percent.

Now they're at 28.0 percent.

That reflects the size of the bite that the injury bug has taken out of the Yankees. They just welcomed slugger Giancarlo Stanton back from a left quad strain Friday, and now reigning MLB home run leader Luke Voit (right oblique strain), starting pitcher Corey Kluber (right shoulder strain) and center fielder Aaron Hicks (left wrist surgery) are due to miss extended time.

The Yankees staff might be able to weather the loss of Kluber. Mainly courtesy of a Cy Young Award-caliber season by $324 million ace Gerrit Cole, the club ranks first in the AL with a 3.22 ERA. And in the coming weeks, starter Luis Severino (see here) and ace reliever Zack Britton (here) are due back from their Tommy John and elbow surgeries.

However, the Yankees are shockingly deficient in other aspects of the game. Neil Paine of FiveThirtyEight wrote all about the club's issues with defense, baserunning and situational hitting, yet nothing looms as large as its baffling shortage of offensive firepower.

To wit, the Yankees are only in the middle of the pack with 62 home runs and third from the bottom with a .371 slugging percentage. You'd never know they still have many of the same members of a unit that slugged .490 with 306 home runs just two years ago.

The injuries obviously haven't helped. Nor is it helping that DJ LeMahieu and Clint Frazier are having down years after lighting things up in 2020. Then there's the curious case of Gleyber Torres, who's gone from 62 homers in his first two seasons to just five over his last two.

Yet there are also foundational issues.

For instance, the Yankees' ground-ball percentage is up 4.2 points from 2019. They're also striking out 24.9 percent of the time, compared to 23.0 percent in 2019 and 21.7 percent just last year.

The Yankees are part of a leaguewide issue in the latter regard, yet what's unique about their strikeout problem is how it derives from misses on hittable pitches. Whereas their rate of contact outside the strike zone is only down from 61.4 to 60.1 percent since 2019, their contact percentage inside the zone has fallen from 85.0 to 82.0 percent.

Even more so than manager Aaron Boone, such things ought to have Yankees hitting coach Marcus Thames on the hot seat. But even if he were to be relieved of duty, the Yankees would still have holes at first base and center field by way of Voit's and Hicks' injuries. General manager Brian Cashman may need to fill those on the trade market.

Either way, the Yankees are running out of time to be patient.

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The Rays Are Just Really Good

You only have to go back to May 12 to find a time when the Rays were a mere .500 team (19-19, to be exact) that was looking up at three clubs in the AL East.

But in the weeks since then, they've looked a lot more like the team that won an AL-high 40 games and pushed the Los Angeles Dodgers to six games in the 2020 World Series.

It's perhaps easiest to notice the Rays' excellence when they're in the field. They lead the American League in defensive runs saved and all of MLB in outs above average. And while the guys with the gloves deserve the lion's share of the credit for that, manager Kevin Cash and the club's analytics department deserve some for opponents' .198 average on ground balls against shifted or strategic infield alignments.

Though Tyler Glasnow has certainly carried the rotation with a 2.57 ERA and 98 strikeouts over 70 innings, it's also to Cash's credit that the pitching staff has withstood the offseason departures of Blake Snell and Charlie Morton as well as it has.

Even after he got roasted for his quick hook of Snell in Game 6 of the Fall Classic, Cash has stuck to his guns and limited his starters to only 4.8 innings per outing. Yet he's had a good feel for when to extend them, as the 178 instances in which they've faced a hitter for a third time in a game have yielded an AL-low .544 OPS.

On days when his starters don't go deep, Cash is liable to make up the difference by having the next guys up go more than one inning at a time. The Rays lead MLB with 62 relief appearances that resulted in more than three outs, and 51 of those also yielded one or zero earned runs.

And don't sleep on the Rays offense.

Sure, it has the second-highest strikeout rate in MLB behind only the Tigers. But it's nonetheless scoring five runs per game, and it's been one of the hottest in baseball since May 13.

That's not because the strikeouts have dissipated. It's more so because Rays hitters have been racking up walks and home runs, and many of the latter spring from a specific quality.

Since May 13, only the Red Sox and Minnesota Twins have done a better job than the Rays of pulling the ball in the sweet spot. So far this season, batted balls that match that description have a 1.396 slugging percentage.

If all this isn't a strong enough indication that the Rays are in the race to stay, consider what's become of their chances of winning the division. Since May 12, they've skyrocketed from 3.5 to 36.1 percent.

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The Red Sox Are Holding Course, And the Blue Jays Are Lingering

As the Yankees have fallen and the Rays have risen, it's perhaps been easy to lose sight of the Red Sox. But rest assured, they're still there.

Though it's been a while since the Red Sox's nine-game winning streak in April, they've continued to stay well above water with a 23-18 record over their last 41 games. They've subsisted on superb offense from J.D. Martinez, Xander Bogaerts and Rafael Devers as well as a Matt Barnes-led bullpen that's better than it gets credit for.

With ace left-hander Chris Sale due back from Tommy John surgery sometime this summer, the Red Sox might not need to seek help on the trade market for a rotation that is paper-thin. As it is, Boston is right there with New York and Tampa Bay with a 23.2 percent chance to win the AL East.

Lest anyone think we're forgetting about them, the Toronto Blue Jays may yet crash the party.

They've been up and down, and they're about to be tested as they leave behind their hitter-friendly digs at TD Ballpark in Dunedin, Florida, for more of a controlled environment at Sahlen Field in Buffalo, New York. The move could squeeze a home run flow that's thus far helped pour out an AL-high 77 long balls.

On the flip side, that venue switch could be a boon to a pitching staff that has the second-best road ERA (3.57) of any AL team. And at some point, $150 million signee George Springer (right quad strain) should get healthy and help Vladimir Guerrero Jr. and Marcus Semien carry the lineup.

At 12.7 percent, the Blue Jays' chances of winning the AL East aren't much to look at. But that's also not bad for a club that almost certainly hasn't peaked yet—and which almost certainly will eventually.

Only Baltimore Orioles fans should give up on winning the AL East. For everyone else, it's the best four-horse race in town.

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Stats courtesy of Baseball Reference and FanGraphs and accurate through Monday's games.

The Toronto Blue Jays have launched an investigation into a second sexual misconduct allegation against Roberto Alomar, who was fired from his jobs with both the Jays and MLB in early May for a violation of league policy after a probe into a prior allegation.

Brendan Kennedy of the Toronto Star reported Friday that Melissa Verge, who was an 18-year-old volunteer at a Blue Jays youth baseball camp at the time of her interaction with a 46-year-old Alomar in 2014, said he "propositioned her for sex and, after offering her a private clubhouse tour, pressed his body against hers without her consent."

After she pulled away from him and began to walk away, he caught up with her, put his arm around her and gave her his phone number before asking her to keep the interaction private. The next day, he invited her to his hotel suite for "some kissing and some loving."

Verge told Kennedy she informed team executive Rob Jack about the interactions with Alomar, who was a camp instructor, but there's no evidence the details were shared with anyone else in the organization. Jack was a close friend of Alomar. 

Verge's then-boyfriend and a former professor both confirmed to the Star Verge had told them of her experience with Alomar shortly afterward.

The club released a statement saying it was "troubled to learn about Ms. Verge's experience in 2014 involving Roberto Alomar and another former employee. Since we were made aware of the incident by the Toronto Star, we have commenced an internal investigation using an outside firm."

Verge told Kennedy she previously decided against going public with details of the interaction with Alomar, but the other allegation against him "opened the door for me to be able to share my story," and she's hopeful her story does the same for other women.

"I hope they can speak out and speak up for what's right and hopefully not let men who are in positions of power take advantage of them," she said.

Jack, who served as the Jays' manager of social marketing, was fired after the 2015 season. No reason was given for his termination. He's since worked for Alomar Sports Inc.

Paul Beeston, who was the team's president at the time of the allegations against Alomar, declined comment about the Star story.

Alomar released a statement after he was fired by the Jays and MLB:

https://twitter.com/Robbiealomar/status/1388181908027330561

Neither he nor Jack responded to the Toronto Star's requests for comment.

He'd worked as a special assistant for Toronto and as a consultant focused on helping grow the sport in his native Puerto Rico for the league.

Before his executive career, Alomar was a 12-time All-Star and two-time World Series champion during a 17-year playing career that included stops with seven teams. He was inducted in the Hall of Fame in 2011.

Toronto Blue Jays star George Springer and Colorado Rockies star Trevor Story are donating $150,000 to the Perfect Game Cares Foundation.

The money will be put toward "programs that will combat the systemic barriers that many Black youth athletes and underprivileged youth face."

Great cause and announcement today by George Springer, @Tstory2 and @PerfectGameUSA. @BlueJays @Rockies @PlayBall pic.twitter.com/xUXxkdpC75

— Jon Morosi (@jonmorosi) May 26, 2021

Perfect Game, which was originally launched in 1993 to help grow amateur baseball at all levels, began its charitable foundation in 2003. 

The aims of Perfect Game Cares extend beyond baseball. Executive director Jennifer Ford said the foundation raised more than $500,000 in 2020, which went toward pediatric cancer patients and children from underserved areas.

The donation by Springer and Story focuses on what has been a longstanding issue within youth baseball.

Washington Nationals first baseman Josh bell told Al Jazeera America's Ray Glier in 2014 he believed more and more children were being priced out of the sport.

"Baseball is one of those sports that is really expensive, and the showcases are starting earlier and earlier," he said. "The competition is getting stiffer, so the need for some sort of training outside of the hitting tee in the backyard comes more and more at an earlier age."

Writing for FanGraphs in 2018, Shakeia Taylor explained how the issue tied into the wider lack of diversity across MLB.

In announcing his decision to opt out of the 2020 season, two-time All-Star Ian Desmond recounted how he had recently visited the Little League fields on which he played in Sarasota, Florida. He called the fields "run down" and "neglected."

Desmond went on to say he "felt the triumph of success" and "the love of others" through his days playing at the youth level.

"I got to experience that because it was a place where baseball could be played by any kid who wanted it," he said. "It was there, it was affordable, and it was staffed by people who cared."

Amid a 2021 Major League Baseball season marked by historic offensive futility, there's actually some intriguing overlap between the league's best hitters and its youngest hitters.

To wit, consider the splits for hitters 24 and younger and those 25 and older:

• 24 and Younger: .244 AVG, .317 OBP, .414 SLG, 102 wRC+
• 25 and Older: .236 AVG, .313 OBP, .393 SLG, 97 wRC+

In defense of the 25-and-older crowd, that 97 wRC+ isn't a historically embarrassing figure. It's only three ticks below the average mark of 100 and a far sight better than the 92 wRC+ that 25-and-older hitters had back in 1935.

But that 102 wRC+ that the 24-and-younger crowd is working on? That's the highest such mark in 121 years of MLB's modern era.

Of the many explanations for this historic occasion, there's no better place to start than with the 20-somethings who rank first, fifth and 12th among all hitters in wRC+: Vladimir Guerrero Jr. (198), Fernando Tatis Jr. (189) and Ronald Acuna Jr. (163).

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The New and Improved Vladimir Guerrero Jr.

Where the 23-year-old Acuna and 22-year-old Tatis are concerned, it's certainly fair not to be surprised at their stellar performances. Acuna was the National League Rookie of the Year in 2018, and he and Tatis have three Silver Sluggers and two top-five MVP finishes between them.

The 22-year-old Guerrero, however, is a different story.

As the son of a revered Hall of Famer and the game's No. 1 prospect at the time, Guerrero was saddled with great expectations when he debuted for the Toronto Blue Jays in April 2019. But between '19 and 2020, his first 183 major league games yielded an unspectacular .269/.336/.442 line and 24 home runs.

On the plus side, there were crucial things Guerrero did well. Per his 84th percentile strikeout rate in 2020, one of them was put the ball in play. By way of his 93rd percentile exit velocity, making loud contact was another.

There was therefore only a short leap between Guerrero and superstardom, and it wasn't hard to pinpoint how he could take it. For one, he needed to get in better shape. For two, he needed to sharpen his strike-zone discipline. Lastly, he needed to get more of his hard-hit balls in the air.

Well, he's now hitting .333/.443/.661 with 15 home runs precisely because there are check marks in all three of those boxes.

It is to Guerrero's credit that he followed through on his dedication to get in better shape this offseason. He's also reduced his rate of swings outside the zone, allowing him to become the league's fifth-biggest gainer in walk percentage.

With an average of 94.8 mph, Guerrero trails only Aaron Judge and Evan Longoria in exit velocity. He's also hitting line drives and fly balls on a career-best 46.0 percent of his batted balls, so the 117 mph, 461-foot shot he hit Monday was perhaps inevitable:

461 Feet.
117 MPH.

In other words...#PLAKATA 💥 pic.twitter.com/yVFxp4i8m8

— Toronto Blue Jays (@BlueJays) May 24, 2021

The other remarkable thing about Guerrero's dominance is just how consistently it's been on display. His OPS has been over 1.000 after 41 of his 46 games. In the other five, it's still been over .900.

Never mind a potential All-Star nod and Silver Slugger Award. At this rate, Guerrero could become the player to beat for the American League MVP Award.

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The Familiar Yet Still Improved Ronald Acuna Jr. and Fernando Tatis Jr.

Even if they aren't quite on Guerrero's level, both Acuna (98th percentile) and Tatis (95th) are also standouts on the exit velocity leaderboard.

Where they clearly have Guerrero beat is that they can run. Acuna and Tatis have 16 combined stolen bases, which points to how the Atlanta right fielder and the San Diego Padres shortstop have sprint speeds in the 96th and 95th percentiles.

But while it isn't exactly news that Acuna and Tatis boast elite power and speed, they have added new wrinkles.

For Acuna's part, his .276/.380/.622 line and 15 home runs have much to do with the progress he's made with his own zone discipline. He's swinging at only 16.5 percent of the pitches he's seeing outside the strike zone, which has helped pave the way to a career-high 0.7 walk-to-strikeout ratio.

Yet he's done so while also dramatically improving his coverage outside the zone, where his .267 average and .600 slugging percentage are career bests. You know, just in case you were wondering if that grand slam he hit Friday was an anomaly:

Dingerz.#HyundaiHighlight | #ForTheA pic.twitter.com/vqIPL6w9XK

— Atlanta Braves (@Braves) May 22, 2021

Contrary to Guerrero and Acuna, Tatis is actually taking hacks outside the zone at a higher rate than he did in 2020. Because he's often coming up empty on those swings, there's an easy explanation for why his swing-and-miss rate is all the way down in the 19th percentile.

But in fairness to Tatis, separate stints on the injured list for a left shoulder injury and positive COVID-19 test haven't made it easy for him to get into a rhythm in the 30 games he's played. To boot, the former event even necessitated a change in his swing mechanics. Whereas he used to do so with one hand, he now follows through with both hands.

Judging by his .307/.380/.711 line and 13 homers, that adjustment hasn't cost him where it counts. His new follow through also seems to have boosted his already impressive all-fields power. He's slugging 1.068 on balls up the middle and to the opposite field, compared to .860 across 2019 and 2020.

Which brings us to yet another grand slam:

#SlamDiego. @tatis_jr. What more is there to say? pic.twitter.com/k9TF9bbZAW

— San Diego Padres (@Padres) May 23, 2021

If the season were to end today, Acuna would probably win the NL MVP Award even despite Atlanta's 23-24 record. But if Tatis can stay healthy and help keep the Padres atop the NL West, he may well have the best claim at the end of the season.

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This Youth Movement Isn't Just 3 Players

Though Guerrero, Acuna and Tatis are the headliners, they also represent not even half of the 24-and-under hitters who've done better than a 140 wRC+ over at least 100 plate appearances:

• 3B Austin Riley, ATL: 159 wRC+, 9 HR
• 3B Rafael Devers, BOS: 150 wRC+, 13 HR
• CF Trent Grisham, SDP: 149 wRC+, 6 HR  
  
• DH Yordan Alvarez, HOU: 148 wRC+, 7 HR

It's also a near certainty that Juan Soto, 22, will throw his hat into the ring as well. A stint on the IL with a strained left shoulder has contributed to a slow start, but he previously achieved historic greatness with a 152 wRC+ across his age-19, -20 and -21 seasons from 2018 to 2020.

Also worth shouting out are Miami Marlins second baseman Jazz Chisholm Jr. (127 wRC+), St. Louis Cardinals right fielder Dylan Carlson (121) and Blue Jays shortstop Bo Bichette (115). And while they haven't quite clicked yet, it should surprise nobody if New York Yankees shortstop Gleyber Torres (110) and Astros right fielder Kyle Tucker (110) rediscover the star-caliber form they've previously shown.

Regarding how, exactly, the youngest hitters in MLB are succeeding at a historic level while everyone else is having such a hard time, it's not necessarily because they're better pure hitters. Indeed, the 24-and-younger crowd lags behind the 25-and-older crowd in both walk rate (8.6 to 9.0) and strikeout rate (25.3 to 24.0).

But as you'd perhaps expect, the youngsters have a distinct edge in the more athletic aspects of the game. They best their elders in average exit velocity (89.3 to 88.9 mph) and baserunning value (9.1 to minus-9.1).

As long as those advantages hold and Guerrero, Acuna and Tatis keep doing their thing, MLB's youth movement should maintain forward momentum throughout the season.

Minnesota Twins starting pitcher Jose Berrios is a "name to watch" if the Toronto Blue Jays begin to pursue ways to strengthen their staff, according to MLB Network's Jon Morosi.

Berrios is 3-2 with a 3.74 ERA and 3.53 FIP in eight starts so far, per FanGraphs.

The first question is why Minnesota would want to trade one of its best pitchers.

The Twins own the worst record (14-26) in the American League, but the door isn't totally closed on the playoffs. FanGraphs gives them an 8.8 percent chance of reaching the postseason, while Baseball Prospectus is a little more optimistic at 20.7 percent. 

Berrios is arbitration-eligible for one more year, with the bulk of the current roster signed or under team control through at least 2022. Should the organization miss out on the playoffs, the front office doesn't need to blow it up and start over.

But general manager Thad Levine might see sometime before the July 30 trade deadline as the best time to move Berrios since Minnesota's trade leverage will only dwindle the closer the 26-year-old gets to free agency.

The Blue Jays are second in the East at 23-17, 0.5 games back of the Boston Red Sox. The top four teams in the division are separated by just 1.5 games, so it promises to be a tight race.

Because of that, acquiring a starting pitcher would be a sensible move. Toronto's starters are collectively 21st in FIP (4.39) and 27th in home run rate (1.67 per nine innings), per FanGraphs.