Welcome to Week 15 of our Patience or Panic series! Every week, we perform an autopsy on three underperforming players to see if there’s any hope of resuscitation. Or is it time to pull the plug?
Vladimir Guerrero Jr., 1B, Toronto Blue Jays
There comes a time in every superhero’s career when they lose their powers. Red suns cripple Superman. Spider-Man once lost his abilities due to a deep depression. Captain America once had the Super Soldier Serum drained from his body. Heck, even Batman’s been through it. Bane broke his back. A battle with The Joker stripped him of his memory. The point is, no one’s invulnerable. Every hero has their scare.
That is something every Canadian is realizing with Vladimir Guerrero Jr.. The once fearsome slugger, who just a season ago led Toronto to the World Series, is a shell of his former self in 2026. Through 85 games, he’s hitting .266/.348/.349 with a .697 OPS and a 97 wRC+. More specifically, he’s struggling in the power department, seeing his slugging percentage drop by .118 points from last year. On the whole, Guerrero’s gone from hitting 48, 32, and 30 home runs in a season to just four so far this season. That’s right. Out of 151 qualified batters, Guerrero is one of 15 players with four or fewer home runs.
How? Why? It’s a question both Canada and the baseball world have been asking. Guerrero is 27. He is in the prime of his career. He’s been a power hitter before, and at one point, was regarded as the next premier home run hitter in baseball — See his 2023 Home Run Derby win or his 2019 highlights. So, what’s happened? What’s his kryptonite?
The truth is, maybe Guerrero isn’t the hitter we thought he was. That sounds like some Lex Luthor smear campaign. It’s not. What it means is this: Because of Guerrero’s build, his position, and his past success, we’ve been programmed to expect one thing from him above all else: Dingers. But go through his recent seasons. He hasn’t been that player. Ever since that vaunted 48 home run season in 2021, Guerrero hasn’t hit more than 35 home runs in a single season. The closest he’s gotten is 32. Even last year, he hit just 23. This isn’t a new problem. Nor is it one that came out of nowhere.
Supporting evidence comes in his slugging numbers. From 2022 to 2026, Guerrero ranks seventh among all first basemen in slugging. Not bad, especially in a player pool of 52. However, in ISO, Guerrero ranks 19th. Here are just some of the names ahead of him: Spencer Torkelson, Michael Toglia (remember him), Jake Bauers, Rowdy Tellez, and Kody Clemons. All of this is to say that Guerrero is not perhaps a Pete Alonso or Matt Olson-like hitter. His balls don’t wear capes the way theirs do. Thankfully, where he’s lacked in home runs, he’s found consolation in doubles. In fact, he has the seventh-most in baseball since 2022.
But what of Guerrero’s barrel numbers? Have those two been affected by a green space rock? Broadly, no. As of late, yes. Where Guerrero’s seen a modest dip in his HardHit%, he’s seen his barrel numbers nearly halved. He’s gone from a 12.2 Barrel% to 6.9%, the 15th-highest dip in baseball. Likewise, he’s gone from barreling nine balls per plate appearance to 5.3. Another mammoth drop comes in his xSLG, which is down nearly a whole .100 points from .506 to .410. His inert bat is no fluke. It’s no accident. It’s what happened when a player’s regressed in every major power-related statistic.
The strongest reason for Guerrero’s power struggles is his timing. Per Baseball Savant’s Bat Tracking, Guerrero is late on fastballs and early on breaking balls and offspeed pitches. Conversely, he’s almost perfectly centered on fastballs but flailing on breaking and offspeed pitches, perhaps a reason for his meager seven extra-base hits on non-fastballs this season.
Guerrero’s whole Baseball Savant page sticks out like a horror movie. And the greatest jump scare is the “Similar Batters to” list, which includes 2019 Nick Ahmed, Robinson Canó, Starling Marte, Trea Turner, and Tommy Pham. Yes, we’re at the point where we’re comparing one of baseball’s highest-paid players with a just-about-over-the-hill Cano, a young Turner, and Ahmed’s best season.
Power and comparison aside, Guerrero isn’t being depowered by just one pitch. Last season, he had a positive run value on seven different kinds of pitches. A majority of that success came against fastballs and sinkers. This season, he has a positive run value on just two pitches: Fastballs and changeups. He has a negative run value on four pitches: Sliders, cutters, curveballs, and splitters. Everything else is at zero. Guerrero’s batting run value on the whole is down to -3. Bear in mind, he held a +38 and +53 in the two seasons before this.
It’s all so strange. And a look at his batted ball profile doesn’t reveal anything amiss. The only stat meaningfully out of whack is Guerrero’s opposite ground ball and air rate. The former is up 3%, the latter is down 4%. Aside from that, he’s broadly in tune with his career averages. The same can be said for his bat speed, which is down just .5 MPH.
The Verdict: He’ll probably be fine. Probably. This is Vlad we’re talking about, Captain Canada. Odds are Nick Ahmed isn’t trapped in his body. Then again, superhero comics are littered with stories of body swapping, too.
Jazz Chisholm Jr., INF, New York Yankees
Barry B. Benson once said something. “Ya like jazz?” That question was first posed to audiences circa 2007 with The Bee Movie. Later, in 2024, it was posed to the Bronx when the Yankees acquired Jazz Chisholm Jr. The answer then was a resounding yes. Chisholm posted an .825 in his first 46 games after coming over in a mid-season trade. He then put up an .813 OPS in his first full season with 31 home runs and 80 RBIs to boot. So, yes, the Bronx really liked Jazz.
But now a different answer is buzzing around the Bronx. Through 84 games this season, the 28-year-old is hitting .225/.307/.396 with a .703 OPS and a 97 wRC+. He’s hitting for far less power, collecting far fewer RBIs, and behind Austin Wells, Ryan McMahon, and José Caballero, is the least productive hitter in New York’s lineup. He’s gone from dripped in honey to arguably public enemy number one.
And before conclusions are flown to, let’s talk about New York’s proverbial Queen Bee: Aaron Judge. Before Judge’s May 31 injury, Chisholm was hitting .239/.314/.385 with a .700 OPS. Still not overly impressive, but superior numbers to where he’s at now. His contact was up, as was his OBP. In the month and change since then, in a world without Judge, Chisholm is hitting .194/.290/.419 with a .709 OPS and 98 wRC+.
That said, Chisholm isn’t the only headless hitter in the hive. All-Stars Ben Rice and Cody Bellinger have a .689 and .615 OPS since Judge’s injury. The Yankees offense has an 87 wRC+. The entire offense is suffering without Judge’s protection. This is not a Chisholm-only problem. And if anything, he’s stepped up and filled some of the power vacuum in a literal sense. If nothing else, he’s done more than his All-Star teammates. But Chisholm’s bat has become something of a stinger, effective in small, limited uses.
Still, as stated, Chisholm wasn’t thriving with Judge, either. It’s not a chicken-or-the-egg situation. Or, more aptly, a bee-or-the-egg situation. So, what is it?
Chiefly, it’s Chisholm’s barrel numbers. Throughout his career, this has always been a point of pride for the Bahamian. We’re talking a 79th percentile finish in 2023, a 66th in 2024, and then most impressively, a 91st in 2025. That year, he was barreling 15% of all balls and doing so every nine plate appearances. It’s why and how he reached 31 homers on the season. He became a Bronx Bomber in every sense of the word.
This year that’s not the case. He’s more of a Bronx Grenadier. His Barrel% is down 6.1%, to 8.9, giving him the 11th-highest year-to-year decrease in baseball. Accordingly, he’s fallen to the 56th percentile, barely-above-average and a career-worst. Likewise, he’s barreling 5.4 balls per plate appearance, a little less than half of last season’s tally.
In large part, that explains much of what we’re seeing. Chisholm, despite his build, is not an old-school shortstop. He is not a contact hitter. Even before this season, he had a .248 career batting average. He’s hit above .250 twice. And his xBA has never been pretty, peaking at .242 in 2022. His value, his jelly, has always come from his power. So if Chisholm isn’t connecting the ball with his barrel, and he’s not with the second-worst slugging percentage and ISO and the lowest HR% of his career, then he won’t be of much value.
One oddity amongst all this is that Chisholm seems to be trying for power. He’s all but sold out for it in a Judge-less world. And in general, he’s chasing more than last year, has a career-high Chase Contact%, and is striking out more as a result. Yet, oddly, he has a 61.6 Zone Swing% and is swinging at the first pitch far less. That was a staple of Chisholm’s game the last two seasons, with a 32.5% in 2024 and a 37.9% in 2025. This year, he’s down to 29.8%. He’s a power hitter that’s leaning into it while swinging at fewer pitches in the zone and just swinging less in general. In that way, Jazz has become his namesake: Hard-to-put-to-words and impossible to capture.
Opponents have also done their part to curb Chisholm. Most notably, they’re feeding him fewer breaking balls than ever before at 32.4% of the time. It’s a smart move considering Chisholm has never hit breakers. Seriously. Here are his averages against breaking balls since entering the league in 2020: .143, .182, .314, .190, .208, .192, and this year’s .188. If any pitcher wants to swat him away, this is how.
The Verdict: Chisholm is boom-or-bust this season. Your interest and tolerance of that depends on one question: “Ya like jazz?”
Steven Kwan, OF, Cleveland Guardians
In late April, we asked this very question about Steven Kwan. The answer then was to “Believe.” The answer now? Well…
Kwan hasn’t done much to change hearts and minds. He’s like a seedy politician in that way. He can say all the right things, point toward his past, but in the end, he cannot turn the tide. Now, through 83 games, Kwan is hitting a just-as-bad .221/.328/.278 with a .606 OPS and a 79 wRC+. His bad start has morphed into an abysmal season. Full stop. He is one of the worst players in professional baseball. His OPS is fifth-worst in the game, and his wRC+ ranks 15th. By now, believing in Kwan is a more an act of delusion than anything.
It’s a shocking thing to say. And an earlier point needs to be restated. Kwan has been one of the faces of this era of Cleveland baseball. From 2021 to 2025, he trailed only José Ramírez in fWAR. Y’know, José Ramírez, a seven-time All-Star, six-time Silver Slugger, and perennial MVP. It’s damn good company for Kwan. So to see him falter this way is a sad, sad thing. Not just for Cleveland. A good Kwan makes for good baseball. This is a two-time All-Star himself who’s now nothing more than mincemeat.
And what’s worse, he’s eating himself. Kwan’s issues are the same now as they were then. He is the worst power hitter in the game, literally. His .278 slugging percentage is the worst among all qualified hitters, and his .057 ISO is third behind Nasim Nuñez and Chandler Simpson. As stated before, this isn’t a departure from Kwan’s game. Not entirely. He’s averaged a .390 slug in his four seasons before this. But a bad power hitter to begin with can’t survive losing more than .100 points from his slugging percentage. Kwan’s numbers are proof of that.
It’s also not sustainable to hit balls in the way Kwan has. Or, more aptly, hasn’t. He’s in the first percentile in HardHit% and Barrel%. In other words, he is one of the worst hitters in MLB in two vital areas. His already awful 19.3 HardHit% is now 9.9%, and his 1.9 Barrel% is now 0.4. The former change is the 10th-most pronounced year-to-year change in baseball. So again, just like his slugging, Kwan took an inherent weakness and somehow, most likely inadvertently, doubled down on it. It’s instating a poor policy plan and never correcting it.
Yet like before, it all runs counter to elite strengths. Kwan remains in the 90th percentile or better in Squared-Up%, Chase%, Whiff%, and K%. He’s in the 88th percentile in BB% and in the 80th in LA Sweet-Spot%.
The Verdict: Kwan’s issues persist, and they’re non-starters. It’s one thing to be an outlier and outperform expectations. It’s another to be an outlier and statistically conform to them. There’s no need for a filibuster. Kwan isn’t worth anyone’s time right now.
