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The Triple Crown has only been achieved 12 times in Major League Baseball, and we haven’t seen anyone accomplish the feat since Miguel Cabrera in 2012. Before that, we waited for a whopping 45 years. So, to say Vladimir Guerrero, Jr. hitting for the Triple Crown this year would be monumental is an understatement.
And yet, it doesn’t seem so impossible when you watch him play, and look at where he is in the race. Guerrero, Jr. is tied for the league lead with 22 homers, leads the way with 56 RBIs, and has the third-best batting average in the game.
So, how possible is it, really? Let’s take a look at each category and see. PointsBet decided to put up a prop for the public to wager on, and I think the price may be too attractive to pass up.
Batting Average
Nowadays, we have Statcast’s Expected Batting Average, which helps us get a sense of just how fortunate or unfortunate a hitter is getting. Currently, when you take away two bats that have had 128 at-bats apiece, Guerrero stands fifth in this category with a .321 xBA. Now, you may see that, cross-examine it with his .342 average and say he’s going to fall off as the season progresses.
Nonsense! First off, let’s remember Vlad has a head start over guys ahead of him in the xBA category like Kyle Tucker and Aaron Judge, considering he’s well ahead of them in the category and their luck has yet to turn. Looking at those with a higher xBA than Guerrero, he really only has Michael Brantley to worry about, who’s tied with him at .342 at the moment. Brantley’s .359 xBA signifies he’s even been unfortunate at the plate, if you can believe it.
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Let’s look at contact rate, which should also help us determine if Guerrero can get there. Brantley has made contact on 89.7% of his swings this year, compared to Guerrero’s 72.7%. What Vlad has going for him is that his balls come off the bat so fast that a higher percentage of them go for hits, but we saw back in Aaron Judge‘s debut season that even with the mightiest of swings, over time your high average on balls in play will fall.
Becoming the batting champion will be Guerrero’s biggest obstacle.
Runs Batted In
To figure out whether or not Vlad has a good shot at driving in the most runs, we must look at the positions the Blue Jays are putting him in. After all, this is the one category that is hard to control, and one that your team can help or hurt you with.
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Guerrero’s come to the plate 77 times with runners in scoring position, which ranks 13th in all of baseball. He stands to have a good chance if this keeps up, and it should because the Blue Jays rank fifth in the league with a .325 on-base percentage. Jose Abreu is one of the hitters breathing down Vlad’s neck here, and the White Sox currently rank third in on-base percentage. He and Devers, however, have stepped to the dish more often with runners in scoring position.
Guerrero’s .433 batting average with runners in scoring position has just about everyone even close to him in the RBI category beat by a mile, however, and if he can club enough home runs that should help separate him from the pack. Hitting with runners in scoring position can often be seen as a stat which is too volatile to have any meaning, but Albert Pujols has proven for years that there are some hitters who are just better in those scenarios. Guerrero is one of those guys at the moment, and if nothing else will give you confidence than that should.
Home Runs
Finally, there’s homers. This may seem to be the category that Guerrero is the strongest, and has the fewest challengers. Fernando Tatis, Jr. is likely the only one here that can keep pace with Vlad as long as the two remain healthy, considering they’re very strong in the expected home run category. Vlad’s 22 homers are backed by 19.6 xHR, which ranks second to only Salvador Perez, while Tatis has 18.6 xHR to his 22 real-life bombs.
Devers is, once again, a strong challenger here to Guerrero, but that might be about it. Perez’s off days will make it harder for him to catch Guerrero, as will Ohtani’s off days. It doesn’t hurt that Vlad is in the lead when it comes to xwOBA, as well.
Conclusion
While it will be an uphill battle fending off so many strong challengers in all three of these categories, it helps that Guerrero is really just down to a handful of players. Brantley is the obvious contender for the batting crown, then Devers, Abreu and Tatis are there in the other two. It gives him a better chance, considering just one of those guys entering into a slump would boost his odds considerably.
Speaking of which, I think +1500 is a bit too long here. I think you can say with relative certainty that Guerrero will capture either the home run or RBI crown based on his team and his personal performance to date. The only worrisome category is batting average. With one category seeming to be the obstacle, I can’t help but take this bet.
