Mariners set to face a Vladimir Guerrero Jr. slump somehow worse than Cal Raleigh's

If you're in Seattle and you're befuddled by the year Cal Raleigh is having, just wait until you get a load of Vladimir Guerrero Jr. this weekend in Toronto. As the Mariners and Blue Jays prepare to renew a rivalry that has a very different tenor than it did in 2025, it's telling that Guerrero is still seeking his first regular-season home run at the Rogers Centre in over a year.

Yeah, this is a thing that is happening. One can already hear the protests from Blue Jays fans that this alone doesn't give Raleigh bragging rights over Guerrero. Only one of them is batting .167 for the season, and it's not Guerrero. He's hitting a respectable .260.

Even so, the choice between Raleigh's 80 OPS+ and Guerrero's 89 OPS+ is one of those games where the only winning move is not to play. The only good news on either front is that Raleigh has at least been heating up. He's coming into Seattle's three-game set in Toronto off a homestand in which he homered five times.

Even before we found out what was going on, there were reasons to believe "Big Dumper" was finally ready to start living up to his 60-homer season of a year ago. Now we know that Edgar Martinez got in there and recommended a mechanical tweak, providing actual tangible evidence that Raleigh's better-late-than-never surge could be made to last.

Vladimir Guerrero Jr. is still searching as Cal Raleigh and the Mariners come to town

Meanwhile in Toronto, the discourse surrounding Guerrero is about whether it's time for the Blue Jays to drop the six-time All-Star in the batting order. From what they went through with Raleigh not too long ago, the Mariners might vouch for the idea. Instead, the message from Toronto is that Guerrero is staying right where he is at the top of the lineup.

There's clearly a reputational wall standing between Guerrero and that kind of treatment. Dude has a career 131 OPS+ with three seasons of 30-plus home runs, and he's still only 27. As Mariners fans well remember, he also looked like the best hitter on the planet last October.

Plus, there's the $500 million contract. "Best not to gloss over that," he said to himself.

It'll nonetheless be interesting to see how the Mariners attack Guerrero. He's been getting pantsed by right-handers all year for a .666 OPS, and specifically by sliders and cutters. So, anything firm with movement away from him is basically a cheat code.

Or, do they simply treat him like a paper tiger and go right at him? As much as the bat speed and strikeout rate still paint Guerrero as a threat, everything else is down. We're talking middling exit velocity and hard-hit rate, and so many ground balls that his barrel rate has almost been cut in half from last season.

Whatever forward progress Guerrero might be making behind the scenes has yet to translate on the field. Whereas Raleigh and his adjusted swing have an .819 OPS and seven homers in August, Guerrero is at a .572 OPS and one homer for the month. Overall, he has a .609 OPS and five long ones since the end of April.

All this feels like a perfect setup for one of those "Baseball Images That Precede Unfortunate Events" posts. But if that happens, so be it. In 2026 terms, it's just weird to get to this point and feel confident in Raleigh and so unafraid of Guerrero.

Add us as a preferred source on Google

Follow