TORONTO – Vladimir Guerrero Jr. has been voted to the All-MLB First Team presented by MGM Rewards at first base, an accolade that captures the young star’s incredible turnaround in 2024.
The All-MLB honors, established in 2019, recognize baseball’s best at each position based on regular-season play. This is Guerrero’s second time being named to the First Team, following 2021, when he finished runner-up to Shohei Ohtani for the AL MVP Award. Turn the clock back six months, though, and this wasn’t the direction Guerrero’s season was headed.
Vladdy hit just three home runs with a .678 OPS through April, and while that’s not nearly enough of a sample size to capture a player’s season, it continued an underwhelming trend from his ‘22 and ‘23 seasons. Each of those campaigns was just fine by most players’ standards — they’d be career years for many — but not Guerrero, who remains one of the most gifted hitters on the planet, and who on Tuesday was awarded a Silver Slugger, the second of his career (2021).
Finally, it all came back together for Guerrero, who re-established himself not only as one of the game’s most feared hitters but as the undisputed face of the franchise. After tearing through the summer, Guerrero finished the season batting .323 with 30 home runs and a .940 OPS. Those numbers don’t quite reach his peak from 2021, when he hit 48 homers with a 1.002 OPS, but he proved over the final months of ‘24 that he’s still capable of doing that.
Source: https://www.mlb.com/bluejays/news/