Article: So That’s Why the Blue Jays Didn’t Extend Vladimir Guerrero Jr.

[Davy Andrews]

On Thursday, Vladimir Guerrero Jr. spoke to ESPN reporters about what he asked for in his negotiations with the Blue Jays. It was a lot.

When the Blue Jays missed Vladimir Guerrero Jr.’s spring training deadline for negotiating a contract extension with the young superstar, the future of the franchise was condemned to uncertainty for the next season. However, the decision made one thing extremely certain: the rest of us were doomed to spend the entire season discussing that uncertainty. Well, here we are again. On Thursday, Guerrero spoke with ESPN’s Enrique Rojas and Ernesto Jerez about his negotiations with the team. He also revealed further details about what he was asking for, attempting to make it clear that he wasn’t asking for something commensurate with Juan Soto’s record-breaking contract with the Mets. Let’s start with Guerrero’s comments themselves, and then we’ll break them down.

If you speak Spanish, you can watch the interview here, and if you don’t, you can read ESPN’s English-language article here. The quotes below were pulled from the second article, but in some parts, I translated Guerrero’s words myself. I did that not because ESPN did anything wrong – they absolutely didn’t – but just because they combined some answers for readability, whereas I thought the back and forth between Guerrero and the interviewers gave more nuance to the discussion, and I think there was a little bit more information to be gleaned.

It started with a question about how important it was that Guerrero has a father who’s been through the negotiation process. He dismissed that notion, saying that he didn’t discuss the matter with his father, but that he would when negotiations got more serious. Guerrero was then asked about the comments he made back on February 18, when he said, “They had their numbers; I had my numbers,” and that Toronto’s offer was, “not even close to what we are looking for.”

"There was an exchange [of salary figures],” he said. “The meetings lasted until the last day of the deadline, but they [the Blue Jays and Guerrero's agents] couldn't reach an agreement on the numbers. But as I've always said, just because we couldn't reach an agreement, I'm not going to change the way I work. I have to keep working."

Guerrero was then asked if he could give more details about the numbers. He replied, “So a little bit less than Soto. Much, much, much, much, much less than Soto. We’re talking about an amount of money that’s much less than Soto. More than 100. So more than 100 less than Soto.”

He then said something that I don’t quite know how to translate properly: “Que saquen cálculos lo que saben sacar cálculos.” It translates to, “Let them [the Blue Jays] make the calculations they know how to make,” and what I think he meant was, essentially, that he’s asking for a deal for way less money than Soto, so they can run all the numbers they want. If you detect a tiny bit of bitterness there, I think you might be right. However, I want to be very clear once again that a native Spanish speaker might have a better grasp of the nuance here.

He was then asked, “Six-hundred [million], then?”

“No,” he said. “Because, I don’t think it reaches 600, the amount I was looking for. The amount we gave [as a counteroffer] didn’t reach 600.”

He was then asked if the number he was looking for was for fewer years.

“No,” he said, “it was the same years, but it didn’t reach 600. But now…like I told you, I know the business. I lowered it [the salary request] a little, but I also lowered the years. Now, we’re going to have,” he paused. “If they want to sign me,” he paused again. “For me, I’m looking for 14 [years]. I would like 14, 15, even 20 if they give them to me.”

“Years?” he was asked.

“Years,” he said. “But doing it the right way.”

That’s a lot to unpack from a video clip that’s two minutes and 30 seconds long.

Let’s start here. First and foremost, Guerrero is aware of the rumors that he was asking the Blue Jays for a contract in the neighborhood of Juan Soto’s 15-year, $755-million deal with the Mets. He wanted to make it very clear – “mucho, mucho, mucho, mucho, mucho menos” clear – that he asked for much less than what Soto got. That’s the message he wanted out there, and there’s good reason for it. Soto is a year younger, and by fWAR, he’s literally been more than twice as valuable as Guerrero to this point in their careers: 36.3 to 17.0. Although Guerrero is a true superstar who takes his value seriously, even he knows that there’s only one Juan Soto.

That said, Guerrero’s phrasing, saying that the amount he asked for didn’t reach $600 million, makes it clear that he wasn’t that far away from it. The whole point of this interview was to make his contract demands sound reasonable, so if he’d been in a position to say, “It wasn’t even close to $600 million,” he absolutely would’ve said that. Clearly, he was asking for significantly more than $500 million, let alone the $340 that the Blue Jays were rumored to have offered.

Working from that starting point and knowing that he said he did ask for the same number of years as Soto – 15 years, though it’s worth noting that a deal would have bought out 2025, his final year of arbitration, so in effect, it would only add 14 years to his stint in Toronto – let’s make a guess and say that he wanted a $550 million contract. To be clear, this is just an estimate for us to work from, nothing more, but based on his comments, it can't be far off. In terms of total value, that would be the third-largest contract in baseball history. Process that for a moment.

Processed? That breaks down to an average annual value of $36.67 million. That’s still a huge amount of money. By AAV, it would make Guerrero the ninth-highest-paid player in baseball, but only technically. Once you weed out expired contracts and contracts with deferrals that inflate their value, he’d actually be in sixth, behind Soto, Shohei Ohtani, Zack Wheeler, Aaron Judge, and Jacob deGrom. If that sounds to you like a list of the absolute best hitters and pitchers in baseball (plus Ohtani who is both), then you’re not wrong. Moreover, Wheeler’s and deGrom’s deals had such a high AAV because they were shorter deals. Guerrero was asking to be paid like a top-five player in all of baseball.

Guerrero is a true star and one of the game’s great hitters, but it’s really hard to construct an argument in which he’s a top-five player in baseball. Even if you throw out his underwhelming rookie season and the short 2020 season, over the past four years, his 16.4 fWAR makes him the 25th-most valuable position player. He is the game’s worst defender at the worst defensive position, and he’s also one of the worst baserunners. But even if we look just at wRC+, so as to look only at value created at the plate, and even if we once again ignore the first two years of his career, Guerrero’s 145 wRC+ makes him the ninth-best hitter in baseball. There’s just no way to slice things so that he’s a top-five player in the game. Moreover, one-dimensional first basemen are simply not valued very highly right now. Anthony Rizzo can’t find a place to play. Pete Alonso struggled all offseason to find a deal and accepted much less than he was asking for. It’s just a tough market.

Let’s step back for a second and think about these negotiations differently. Speaking very generally, contract extensions can be a way for both parties to win, by balancing risk and security. If Guerrero were to get injured or to play badly in 2025, it would depress his value, and he wouldn’t be able to make as much money in free agency. By signing an extension early, he’d get some security against that possibility, and for that security he would give up some money. Likewise, by strapping itself to one player for such a long time, the team is taking on significant risk. If that one player tanks, so does the team. For that risk, they expect a discount. That mutual benefit is why extensions happen. You can argue that the Blue Jays should have signed Guerrero to an extension years ago, and while I think that would have been a tough swing, I certainly hear the argument. But when it comes to right now, as I hope I made clear in the previous two paragraphs, Guerrero seemed to be asking not just for his full market value, but more than it. That’s just not usually how extensions work.

To be clear, Guerrero has every right to choose free agency and to seek what he believes he's worth. If he does, it will be the first time in his life that he's ever had any control over his employment situation, a factor that I think we often fail to consider in these discussions. Moreover, he has several things working in his favor. He’ll only be 26 this season, so he’s still got several years of his prime left. He’s beloved in Toronto, and the front office knows all too well how upset the city would be to see him sign somewhere else. He also knows that the Blue Jays don’t have a ton of depth either in the majors or the minors, so losing him would be a huge blow. Lastly, the Blue Jays certainly fear that by failing to meet Guerrero’s demands now, they will lose the chance to negotiate with him later. All of those factors make Guerrero more valuable to the Blue Jays than to another team, and they give him more leverage. However, they weren't enough to push the team that far this early. He came out on Thursday hoping to show that he was asking for a reasonable figure, but under the circumstances, I do not think that he achieved that goal. What he revealed is that he wasn’t really asking for an extension deal at all. He was essentially asking the Blue Jays to bid against themselves, taking the number all the way up to and then past his value on the open market. That’s a hard calculation to make.

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[Spanky99]

Nice article, Davy... I believe the number David Ortiz tweeted out was his ask 5/585M... that's an absurd amount of money, Jays best bet is to match what he's offered in FA next winter, we'll see what his real market value is then, and if he stays with his word on being a Blue Jay for life. Cause I for one don't believe a bad base running and defensive 1B is worth anything close to what this kid's camp thinks he's worth. He has too many dingleberries in his ear after that stupid contract given out to Soto, but this guy isn't even in Soto's echelon. VGJ left me looking at him in a different light after this offseason's nonsense with an arbitrary deadline and trying to muscle the team into caving to his demands, I'm quite glad Atkins took the high road here and didn't cave to his outlandish demands as I said, I doubt there's a market into the 5's with this kid next winter, so now we wait. 

[Marcus Graham]

Very good article. Very informative and well written.  I commenter just referred to the David Ortiz comment about Guerrero asking 15 years $585. Based on Guerrero's comments, those numbers seem very accurate. That's just far too much term and money.  

[BatFlip]

3 hours ago, Davy Andrews said:

“No,” he said, “it was the same years, but it didn’t reach 600. But now…like I told you, I know the business. I lowered it [the salary request] a little, but I also lowered the years. Now, we’re going to have,” he paused. “If they want to sign me,” he paused again. “For me, I’m looking for 14 [years]. I would like 14, 15, even 20 if they give them to me.”

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This guy is very reasonable, didn't even ask for $600M.  More than Ohtani's discounted contract, but less that Soto.  Seems about right.  He knows the business probably about as well as he knows baserunning.

Atkins offering $450:

 

[Eat My Shatkins]

Unless Vlad puts up an 8+ WAR season he's in for a rude awakening when he hits the open market IMO

[Hipfan]

Here’s hoping he puts up a totally cromulent season, maybe 3.5 WAR, that doesn’t torpedo the Jays but also kills his market. If another team wants to pay him $500M have at it.

I was so pumped about Vladdy after the 2021 season but since then he’s done nothing but disappoint. He’s terrible at everything except hitting and I’d be shocked if he ages well. Can’t believe I’m saying this, but I don’t care if he leaves. He needs to have a monster year to change my mind.

[John_Havok]

10 hours ago, Eat My Shatkins said:

Unless Vlad puts up an 8+ WAR season he's in for a rude awakening when he hits the open market IMO

With his baserunning and D, the type of offensive season he'd have to have to hit 8 fWAR would be mind-blowing. 

What would it take like... 200 wRC+ give or take a few points? 

[Gen.Disarray]

46 minutes ago, Hipfan said:

Here’s hoping he puts up a totally cromulent season, maybe 3.5 WAR, that doesn’t torpedo the Jays but also kills his market. If another team wants to pay him $500M have at it.

I was so pumped about Vladdy after the 2021 season but since then he’s done nothing but disappoint. He’s terrible at everything except hitting and I’d be shocked if he ages well. Can’t believe I’m saying this, but I don’t care if he leaves. He needs to have a monster year to change my mind.

Hopefully way more than cromulent. Ideally he puts up a monster season, propels the Jays to the playoffs and they win at least a couple games. Or he puts up a monster season, the Jays suck otherwise and he gets traded at the deadline for the best prospect/ prospects they can get.

I don't want him back for any contract he's likely to get. It's not like a mediocre season is going to bring his price down to something palatable. I don't think he's worth the $340mil they already offered him let alone $400mil or more. I think he's probably the next Ryan Howard, Fielder, Miggy, Pujols, etc. Let someone else pay for that 

[Spanky99]

1 hour ago, Hipfan said:

Here’s hoping he puts up a totally cromulent season, maybe 3.5 WAR, that doesn’t torpedo the Jays but also kills his market. If another team wants to pay him $500M have at it.

I was so pumped about Vladdy after the 2021 season but since then he’s done nothing but disappoint. He’s terrible at everything except hitting and I’d be shocked if he ages well. Can’t believe I’m saying this, but I don’t care if he leaves. He needs to have a monster year to change my mind.

That's messed bud.

[glory]

Vlad probably thought he was worth a top 5-10 contract after 2022-23. I don't think a 3 WAR season is going to stop him from overvaluing himself. The best case scenario for the Jays, regardless of how the team as a whole does, is Vlad having a monster season. That means the Jays are either in contention or can trade him at max value (whatever that means for a rental nowadays) at the deadline. 

[Brownie19]

11 hours ago, John_Havok said:

With his baserunning and D, the type of offensive season he'd have to have to hit 8 fWAR would be mind-blowing. 

What would it take like... 200 wRC+ give or take a few points? 

Probably a wRC+ of 250 the way he runs and plays defense.

[max silver]

13 hours ago, John_Havok said:

With his baserunning and D, the type of offensive season he'd have to have to hit 8 fWAR would be mind-blowing. 

What would it take like... 200 wRC+ give or take a few points? 

Yeah I suspect that falls in the general area. He ran a 181 wRC+ over the last 5 months that corresponded to a 6.9 win pace if prorated over an entire season.

[ValiantJaysFan]

On 3/10/2025 at 11:40 AM, Eat My Shatkins said:

Unless Vlad puts up an 8+ WAR season he's in for a rude awakening when he hits the open market IMO

I'm sure the Dodgers will pay him anything he wants. Freeman is in the twilight of his career, they'll have to replace him soon. And they'll load the deal will deferrals and whatever else they want. 

After this negotiation I would be trading Vlad to the highest bidder and moving on. Not only is he badly over valuing himself, he'd be hamstringing the organization for years to come, showing he doesn't give one single s*** about winning. Boo this man.

[Terminator]

https://nypost.com/2025/03/11/sports/blue-jays-contract-offer-to-vladimir-guerrero-jr-revealed/

Quote

The Toronto Blue Jays offered superstar first baseman Vladimir Guerrero Jr. a deal for about $500 million before negotiations were halted last month — although significant deferrals put an estimate of the actual net present value of the offer between $400 million and $450 million, league sources familiar with the negotiation tell The Post.

Vlad turned down 500 mil (400-450 present day value).

He's absolutely nuts if true. It's going to be hard for him to get much more than that, but there are plenty of scenarios where he gets hundreds of millions less.

[Brownie19]

11 minutes ago, Terminator said:

https://nypost.com/2025/03/11/sports/blue-jays-contract-offer-to-vladimir-guerrero-jr-revealed/

Vlad turned down 500 mil (400-450 present day value).

He's absolutely nuts if true. It's going to be hard for him to get much more than that, but there are plenty of scenarios where he gets hundreds of millions less.

I think that's right around "the line" that most (intelligent) Blue Jays fans felt they could justify to resign Vlad.  Vlad clearly never wanted to sign an extension unless he was grossly overpaid.

 

[Terminator]

Rosenthal is reporting the same. So Vlad wants 500 mil and the Jays offered him 400-450 in present day value. 

[Delete_My_Account_Thanks]

Shatkins learning that when you f#ck around, you find out.

[Stangstag]

9 minutes ago, Terminator said:

Rosenthal is reporting the same. So Vlad wants 500 mil and the Jays offered him 400-450 in present day value. 

Lol Vlad is smoking crack

[Davy Andrews]

On 3/10/2025 at 9:30 AM, Marcus Graham said:

Very good article. Very informative and well written.  I commenter just referred to the David Ortiz comment about Guerrero asking 15 years $585. Based on Guerrero's comments, those numbers seem very accurate. That's just far too much term and money.  

That sounds totally reasonable. I picked $550 as my example because I wanted to make sure I was giving him the benefit of the doubt.

[Brownie19]

2 hours ago, Terminator said:

Rosenthal is reporting the same. So Vlad wants 500 mil and the Jays offered him 400-450 in present day value. 

Huh?  So his "counter" that was just under $600M isn't the number?  If the Jays are at $450 and Vlad wants $500M - then they should get this deal done...like right now.  

I guess the Jays might be in the low $400's in present day value, but this is more encouraging nonetheless.  I'm willing to meet him at $500M if he signs right now.

[Laika]

$500m lmao are you high 

Just let him walk and see with Kyle Tucker wants 

[Brownie19]

So why are these numbers being leaked now?  I have to assume this comes from the Vlad camp, which is odd, seeing as he set the internal deadline.  Is he trying to save face and have fans believe he's actually being reasonable after repeatedly telling them he wants to be a Jay forever?  

If that's Vlad's true number, then why didn't he counter with that number during negotiations?  Could it be that Vlad didn't view the spring training deadline as a true deadline and thus wasn't willing to come down to his "real" number?  I was worried he didn't have any reason to truly negotiate with the Jays as the only real deadline is when he hits the market.  He had no reason to do anything about shoot for the stars in hopes the Jays were stupid enough to bite.

I do wonder if something changed.

I know $500M is an overpay, but it doesn't sound like they are "that" far apart now - it may only be $5M per season, which is the cost of spare parts.  Given all the factors (face of the franchise, fan favourite, potential HOF bat, trouble attracting stars to TO, etc.) - I think you get it done, even if it leaves a little sour taste in your mouth.

[Brock Beauchamp]

I was leaning toward blaming the Jays for not getting this done, now I'm leaning toward blaming Vlad. I knew someone would leak the numbers at some point and if Vlad's sticking point is current-day value versus having some deferred money... c'mon.

The two sides aren't far apart. This should get done and everyone move on.

It appears the Jays are offering somewhere north of $450m in today's value and $500m in money overall. That's way beyond reasonable for a player with so many obvious questions surrounding him.

[Terminator]

They are really close. Vlad has probably stretched them as far as they could possibly go so he just needs to take some more deferrals to get his $500 mil and get this damn thing done.

[Terminator]

1 hour ago, Brownie19 said:

So why are these numbers being leaked now?  I have to assume this comes from the Vlad camp, which is odd, seeing as he set the internal deadline.  Is he trying to save face and have fans believe he's actually being reasonable after repeatedly telling them he wants to be a Jay forever?  

If that's Vlad's true number, then why didn't he counter with that number during negotiations?  Could it be that Vlad didn't view the spring training deadline as a true deadline and thus wasn't willing to come down to his "real" number?  I was worried he didn't have any reason to truly negotiate with the Jays as the only real deadline is when he hits the market.  He had no reason to do anything about shoot for the stars in hopes the Jays were stupid enough to bite.

I do wonder if something changed.

I know $500M is an overpay, but it doesn't sound like they are "that" far apart now - it may only be $5M per season, which is the cost of spare parts.  Given all the factors (face of the franchise, fan favourite, potential HOF bat, trouble attracting stars to TO, etc.) - I think you get it done, even if it leaves a little sour taste in your mouth.

Agreed. I think Vlad's camp is leaking it and he wants to go back to the negotiating table.

[max silver]

9 minutes ago, Terminator said:

They are really close. Vlad has probably stretched them as far as they could possibly go so he just needs to take some more deferrals to get his $500 mil and get this damn thing done.

I fully agree this feels way too damn close to not ultimately get a deal done. I recall rumors stated that Vlad wasn't willing to accept any deferrals which is just incredibly short sighted on his part. He still gets full value eventually and that leaves extra room to build a competitive team around him, it feels like it's nothing more than greed for him to insist to be paid that type of money at present day value only.

[Terminator]

You would think that Vlad's agency, which is new and owned by singer Marc Antony, would be fairly risk-averse.

They are trying to make a name for themselves and landing a $450M dollar deal for their premier client would help put them on the map by shattering the record for a 1B.

If they screw it up it would be a big stumbling block right out of the gate.

[Barrelsandbombs]

2 hours ago, Brock Beauchamp said:

I was leaning toward blaming the Jays for not getting this done, now I'm leaning toward blaming Vlad. I knew someone would leak the numbers at some point and if Vlad's sticking point is current-day value versus having some deferred money... c'mon.

The two sides aren't far apart. This should get done and everyone move on.

It appears the Jays are offering somewhere north of $450m in today's value and $500m in money overall. That's way beyond reasonable for a player with so many obvious questions surrounding him.

To me it actually seems more likely that the leak came from the team side. The numbers that leaked benefit the front office and make Vlad look greedy and unreasonable. If Vlad was the one who leaked it, he might just be a really dumb guy.

One part from Shi's article stood out to me.

https://www.sportsnet.ca/mlb/article/blue-jays-and-vladimir-guerrero-jr-hit-deadlock-over-50m-gap/

Quote

Maybe the leak was intended to push the two sides toward common ground and, if so, then it came from a good place. The alternative, that it was designed to turn opinion against one or the other, is a far darker possibility for the Blue Jays and their fans.

Both possible motives seem to benefit the front office. If it was to try and push the sides toward common ground, it seems like the front office may have leaked it because Vlad was telling the media their offer wasn't close, and they wanted to fact check him plus try to move talks closer to a deal.

Vlad is the one who seems incentivized to just let things play out, and he doesn't seem like he wants to push sides toward common ground, instead he seems excited about the possibility of betting on himself and testing free agency.

If it was to try and turn opinion against one another, then that worked out for them too. How would this leak have had the opposite effect? I don't even think it's possible that this leak could have turned opinions in favour of Vlad, once you see the offer details. Again, if Vlad was the one who leaked it, he might just be a really dumb guy.

[John_Havok]

Just now, Barrelsandbombs said:

To me it actually seems more likely that the leak came from the team side. The numbers that leak benefit the front office and make Vlad look greedy and unreasonable. If Vlad was the one who leaked it, he might just be a really dumb guy.

One part from Shi's article stood out to me.

https://www.sportsnet.ca/mlb/article/blue-jays-and-vladimir-guerrero-jr-hit-deadlock-over-50m-gap/

Both possible motives seem to benefit the front office. If it was to try and push the sides toward common ground, it seems like the front office may have leaked it because Vlad was telling the media their offer wasn't close, and they wanted to fact check him.

If it was to try and turn opinion against one another, then that worked out for them too. How would this leak have had the opposite effect? I don't even think it's possible that this leak could have turned opinions in favour of Vlad, once you see the offer details. Again, if Vlad was the one who leaked it, he might just be a really dumb guy.

We already know Vlad is dumb. If the leak is seen as dumb, chances are it came from Vlad. 

To me it doesn't really matter where the leak came from, the fact is Vlad was asking for a premium FA price tag that vastly overvalues his contributions on the field, when he wasn't a free agent and there was only 1 bidder. If he has a monster season and ends up getting 500m in FA, so be it, there's no reason to hand it to him prior to that though. 

[Brock Beauchamp]

2 minutes ago, Barrelsandbombs said:

To me it actually seems more likely that the leak came from the team side. The numbers that leaked benefit the front office and make Vlad look greedy and unreasonable. If Vlad was the one who leaked it, he might just be a really dumb guy.

Given the numbers, I also think this came from the organization. It makes the most sense.