Toronto Blue Jays general manager Ross Atkins believes first baseman Vladimir Guerrero Jr. will begin producing like a star again next season.
"Very confident that he'll be back," Atkins said Wednesday during his end-of-season press conference, according to Blake Murphy of Sportsnet.
Atkins added, "He's excited about it and extremely confident he's going to be back."
In 2026, Guerrero hit just nine homers with 57 RBI and a .688 OPS over 144 games during the worst season of his eight-year career. He also dealt with various minor injuries and a concussion.
"As he lost a little bit of that rhythm and timing over the course of pretty early in the season, it started to impact his confidence," Atkins said, per Keegan Matheson of MLB.com. "Once it impacted his confidence, in-game and in-season adjustments became very difficult."
Guerrero recently made headlines after saying the Blue Jays gave him a 14-year, $500-million extension for what he "already did" rather than what he'll accomplish in the future. The six-time All-Star later apologized to his teammates and the fans for his comments.
The 27-year-old's power outage was a significant factor in Toronto's bottom-five offense, which hit the least homers in baseball and put up the fifth-worst slugging percentage this season.
"A lot of focus has been on the offense," Atkins said, according to Murphy. "We understand that and agree with that to some extent. But it's never one thing. ... Have to understand every possible opportunity."
The Blue Jays are reportedly expected to pursue Chicago Cubs outfielder Seiya Suzuki if he becomes a free agent. The 32-year-old slugger has recorded 20-plus homers in four straight seasons and owns an .823 career OPS.
Atkins also acknowledged that his roster construction played a role in the Blue Jays missing the playoffs after reaching the 2025 World Series.
"As much as we talk about run scoring, run prevention, defense, baserunning ... there's one person to look at for the reasons for that, and that's me," Atkins said, per Matheson.
