[Davidi] Vladimir Guerrero Jr. and the Blue Jays have reached agreement on a $500-million, 14-yr extension

[BB17]

3 hours ago, glory said:

It will be at some point, but it's probably fine for the next few years. 

A bigger issue for me is if things go south this season and there's a FO change for 2026, then the new FO is going to inherit this contract, plus 4 years of Gimenez at big money, 4 years of Santander, and 5 of Kirk when it's possible they may not have valued any of the them (especially the latter 3) at those years/price points. 

Kirk's contract is fine he's making like 12M a year, even if he's a 2-2.5 win player he's worth that. He's still really good defensively but a guy you want hitting like 8th not 5th or 6th. Even Giminez/Santander aren't franchise crippling, maybe slightly overpaid but still can be average regulars on a contending team. People thought Giminez was an all star after the first week, now calling it a terrible contract lol. Reality is likely in between which is fine.

Honestly Berrios might be the worst contract out of all the non Vladdy guys. For a guy who has decent stuff it feels like he's more of a 2 Win pitcher than a 3-4 Win one. At least he can soak innings so even then not all is lost.

[Orgfiller]

39 minutes ago, L54 said:

I don’t think this is ever a worst contract in baseball deal. I think that’s too extreme of a label 

Look at Soto. Basically identical projections to Vlad ROS for 15M more per season. Not saying that’s the worst contract either but if it’s not Soto then it really can’t be Vlad 

The Gimenez contract is fairly gross. Santander is low enough AAV but it’s 4 more years. Kirk is pretty much FA money. But that’s a lot of dough to guys who could all be pretty meh 

I agree with you, although even those guys at the end that you mentioned are unlikely to be anywhere near the worst contracts in the sport. Even if all of them are complete negatives, their total hit isn't even that bad. Combined they probably make less than Anthony Rendon's contract. Or Stephen Strasburg's.

True horrendous contracts are guys that were paid star level contracts for their performance in their 20s, with the contract mostly in their early to late 30s - Pujols, Miguel Cabrera, Xander Bogaerts. Or pitchers, the most likely to be albatrosses due to injury. Robbie Ray is in a 5/115 deal, he had one okay season in the first year of the contract, missed practically two straight years with TJS, and might suck now.

[L54]

10 minutes ago, Orgfiller said:

I agree with you, although even those guys at the end that you mentioned are unlikely to be anywhere near the worst contracts in the sport. Even if all of them are complete negatives, their total hit isn't even that bad. Combined they probably make less than Anthony Rendon's contract. Or Stephen Strasburg's.

True horrendous contracts are guys that were paid star level contracts for their performance in their 20s, with the contract mostly in their early to late 30s - Pujols, Miguel Cabrera, Xander Bogaerts. Or pitchers, the most likely to be albatrosses due to injury. Robbie Ray is in a 5/115 deal, he had one okay season in the first year of the contract, missed practically two straight years with TJS, and might suck now.

I was referring to those contracts in the same way glory was, talking about long term commitments new management could face if this year is a bust. They’re nowhere near worst contract territory 
 

Xander Bogaerts is a good example of a contract with big albatross risk, eight more years of 25M/yr

 

[Orgfiller]

14 minutes ago, L54 said:

I was referring to those contracts in the same way glory was, talking about long term commitments new management could face if this year is a bust. They’re nowhere near worst contract territory 
 

Xander Bogaerts is a good example of a contract with big albatross risk, eight more years of 25M/yr

 

The Padres are kind of the posterboys of what a team with a bunch of potential/actual albatross contracts looks like.

Cronenworth is signed until 2030 and he's been trending down since 2022. Relatively cheap at least.

Yu Darvish is signed until 2028 for inexplicable reasons. He's 38, declining, and hasn't pitched since the first half of last season. $18M AAV

Joe Musgrove has two more years after 2025 at $20M per. Pitched a combined 200 IP the first two seasons, recovering from TJS.

Bogaerts signed for 8 more years at huge money as you mentioned.

Machado, who is still pretty good, is signed until 2033. He's settled in as a ~3.5 WAR player which is good for now but is likely to decline in the coming years. $31.8M AAV

[glory]

1 hour ago, L54 said:

I don’t think this is ever a worst contract in baseball deal. I think that’s too extreme of a label 

Look at Soto. Basically identical projections to Vlad ROS for 15M more per season. Not saying that’s the worst contract either but if it’s not Soto then it really can’t be Vlad 

The Gimenez contract is fairly gross. Santander is low enough AAV but it’s 4 more years. Kirk is pretty much FA money. But that’s a lot of dough to guys who could all be pretty meh 

Sure maybe "worst contract in baseball" is too harsh, but it's a contract that's not going to age well. I guess it will depend on how long Vlad's prime is. If he's a 150-160 wRC+ player until age 35, then I think that's a great scenario. If his decline begins in his early 30's, then you start to envision a scenario where he's post-prime Pujols/Cabrera for like 8 years. I'm going by the latter, but would love if he has a David Ortiz aging curve. 

With that said, if it's the Vlad contract vs Santander/Gimenez/Kirk, then I'd take the Vlad contract in a heartbeat. He's an elite offensive player and is being paid like one. The others aren't necessarily bad contracts, but you're paying full freight on non elite players, so it's not the most optimal for a new front office having to inherit those deals. 

[goldbug103]

1 hour ago, glory said:

Sure maybe "worst contract in baseball" is too harsh, but it's a contract that's not going to age well. I guess it will depend on how long Vlad's prime is. If he's a 150-160 wRC+ player until age 35, then I think that's a great scenario. If his decline begins in his early 30's, then you start to envision a scenario where he's post-prime Pujols/Cabrera for like 8 years. I'm going by the latter, but would love if he has a David Ortiz aging curve. 

With that said, if it's the Vlad contract vs Santander/Gimenez/Kirk, then I'd take the Vlad contract in a heartbeat. He's an elite offensive player and is being paid like one. The others aren't necessarily bad contracts, but you're paying full freight on non elite players, so it's not the most optimal for a new front office having to inherit those deals. 

Guerrero is hardly elite. One HR through 23 games is average at best and perhaps below average for the position occupied. It was a very bad signing.

[Delete_My_Account_Thanks]

38 minutes ago, goldbug103 said:

Guerrero is hardly elite. One HR through 23 games is average at best and perhaps below average for the position occupied. It was a very bad signing.

Maybe wait more than 23 games to judge a 14 year contract.

A lot of people were upset with Vlad at the end of April last year.  Ended up with an amazing season.  

 

If he's still doing this at the all star break start to panic, but I think at the end of the year he'll have around 30hr a .300 avg and a .900 OPS

[Stangstag]

2 hours ago, Delete_My_Account_Thanks said:

Maybe wait more than 23 games to judge a 14 year contract.

A lot of people were upset with Vlad at the end of April last year.  Ended up with an amazing season.  

 

If he's still doing this at the all star break start to panic, but I think at the end of the year he'll have around 30hr a .300 avg and a .900 OPS

So Bobby Witt but without the speed and premium defense

[mphenhef]

13 hours ago, Delete_My_Account_Thanks said:

Maybe wait more than 23 games to judge a 14 year contract.

A lot of people were upset with Vlad at the end of April last year.  Ended up with an amazing season.  

 

If he's still doing this at the all star break start to panic, but I think at the end of the year he'll have around 30hr a .300 avg and a .900 OPS

I think the issue many people have is by the time he was good last year the Jays were already out of it.  Hopefully the bats pick up this year before that happens.

[Laika]

Not worried about Vlad at all this year. xStats don't lie. 

 

 

[Brownie19]

8 minutes ago, Laika said:

Not worried about Vlad at all this year. xStats don't lie. 

There are certainly several other areas to direct your concerns to than whether or not Vlad will hit.  

[Laika]

5 minutes ago, Brownie19 said:

There are certainly several other areas to direct your concerns to than whether or not Vlad will hit.  

Yeah how about this:

• No Barrels: Lukes, Barger, Schneider
• Only One Barrel: Kirk, Roden, Clement, Wagner, Straw
• Only Two Barrels: Heineman 
• Only Three Barrels: Gimenez, Santander  

Basically the team has 2.5 guys hitting any barrels at all. Vlad, the resurgent George (for however long that lasts) and then Bo with a league average rate. 

Sadness 

Some of these guys have played 20+ games and they've hit a ball properly like, once or twice? 

[BB17]

17 hours ago, glory said:

Sure maybe "worst contract in baseball" is too harsh, but it's a contract that's not going to age well. I guess it will depend on how long Vlad's prime is. If he's a 150-160 wRC+ player until age 35, then I think that's a great scenario. If his decline begins in his early 30's, then you start to envision a scenario where he's post-prime Pujols/Cabrera for like 8 years. I'm going by the latter, but would love if he has a David Ortiz aging curve. 

With that said, if it's the Vlad contract vs Santander/Gimenez/Kirk, then I'd take the Vlad contract in a heartbeat. He's an elite offensive player and is being paid like one. The others aren't necessarily bad contracts, but you're paying full freight on non elite players, so it's not the most optimal for a new front office having to inherit those deals. 

Thing with the Vladdy contract is he could be a 160wRC+ bat for the next 5 years and it still end up as an albatross contract because of how long the deal is. Like you said there is 4 dead years at the end at minimum, but you hope he can at least be productive till 35.

[BTS]

1 minute ago, BB17 said:

Thing with the Vladdy contract is he could be a 160wRC+ bat for the next 5 years and it still end up as an albatross contract because of how long the deal is. Like you said there is 4 dead years at the end at minimum, but you hope he can at least be productive till 35.

And the problem with that is that the team doesn't look primed to contend in the next few years anyway. What's the point of eating a bunch of bad years on the end of a deal when the team is an 80-win also-ran for the best years at the front? 

[xposbrad]

1 hour ago, BB17 said:

Thing with the Vladdy contract is he could be a 160wRC+ bat for the next 5 years and it still end up as an albatross contract because of how long the deal is. Like you said there is 4 dead years at the end at minimum, but you hope he can at least be productive till 35.

4 dead? I doubt he'll be +WAR at 35/36. There will probably be at least 6 dead years. It's basically an 8/500m deal. Is Vladdy worth 62.5m/yr? And that could be even higher if he stops at 32-33. He won't even be worth that this year and this is his 'prime' lol.

[glory]

1 hour ago, BTS said:

And the problem with that is that the team doesn't look primed to contend in the next few years anyway. What's the point of eating a bunch of bad years on the end of a deal when the team is an 80-win also-ran for the best years at the front? 

Exactly. The best remaining years of Vlad's career will likely be on teams not good enough to even take advantage of it. So on top of there being a real chance of somewhere between 5-10 dead money years, by the time the team might actually be good enough to contend for a deep playoff run, they might be towards the end of Vlad's prime years. It literally made no sense on any level.

[BB17]

2 hours ago, BTS said:

And the problem with that is that the team doesn't look primed to contend in the next few years anyway. What's the point of eating a bunch of bad years on the end of a deal when the team is an 80-win also-ran for the best years at the front? 

I agree 100%. The team is stuck in no man's land.