This is Why We Miss Vlady Guerrero

Caps off to Deadspin's Barry Petchesky for reminding us what we miss so much about former Angel Vladimir Guerrero.

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In his post “Vlad Guerrero Could Hit Anything,” the Deadspinner theorizes “Guerrero had to be the best bad-ball hitter of all time.”

As evidence, Petchesky includes this video of then-Angel Vlady hitting an Oriole pitch that bounced into the dirt:

Petchesky concludes by saying it's a shame no video exists “of the best Vlad legend: that while coming up through the Expos system, at Double-A Harrisburg, he homered off a pitch after it bounced in the dirt. Maybe it's merely apocryphal. I don't think so, though; I've seen enough actual Guerrero at-bats to believe.”

The post sparked “Captain Crutch” to note that the Angels TV crew used to describe Vlady's strike zone as “nose to toes.”

Guerrero on Sept. 26, 2011, surpassed Julio Franco to become the all-time MLB leader in hits among players from the Dominican Republic. Adrián Beltré took that honor from Vlady in 2014, but were it a head-to-head contest of balls hit on the bounce …

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