Vlad the Impaled

Watching the playoffs, the saddest thing to see -- after the seeming inevitability of another purchased World Championship for the Yankees -- is the dramatic decline of Vladimir Guerrero. Hitless in his first two games and having whiffed in his previous at-bat on a pitch half a light-year from the strike zone, Guerrero was the last guy the Angels wanted at the plate with the bases juiced and two down in the seventh inning of a tie Game 2.

Guerrero is a lesson in the importance of plate discipline. For 12 years, Vlad the Impaler made mincemeat of Major League pitching by swinging at everything in the same zip code as home plate. From his first full season in 1998 to 2007, Guerrero's lowest OPS was .943 despite Stevie Wonder's batting eye.

There is only way to bat .300 with power while swinging at everything but the pick-off move: possess mad skills. Vlad was so endowed. However...

Starting last year, his 33rd on Planet Earth, Guerrero's skills began to erode. His OPS the last two seasons slumped to .886 and .794, and he's failed to hit 30 home runs each of the last three years. His value, as compared to a replacement-level player at his position dropped from a high of seven wins, accomplished several times, to about one-and-a-half win in 2009.

To be fair, Vlad missed a third of the season this year. On the other hand, he DH'd almost exclusively. Counter-intuitively, the replacement level hitter at DH is actually weaker than at right-fielder.

Guerrero's problem is that he can no longer compensate for his miserable plate discipline with an uncanny ability to hit everything. Pitchers know they can make bad pitches, and as long as they're not hugging the plate, they can get him out.

That's what was on display when he batted against a suspect Joba Chamberlain in Game 2. In 45-degree temperatures, Joba had come into the game one batter earlier and issued a free pass to the previous batter. But Guerrero swung at all four pitches he saw -- two of them balls -- and struck out, leaving three runners aboard.

The prognosis for Vladimir Guerrero in 2010 is pretty poor. Time waits for no one, and it doesn't appear that he's learned anything about how to hit. It's a shame too, becuse he was on a Hall of Fame trajectory had he only improved on the one glaring weakness in his game.

Plus, he could have helped beat the Yankees.
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