For Vladimir Guerrero Jr. And the Blue Jays, What’s $50 Million Between Friends?

On Thursday, Ken Rosenthal of The Athletic reported that sources told him Vladimir Guerrero Jr. was asking for $500 million in present value during extension negotiations. The Jays, said those sources, were offering close to $500 million, but with deferrals, making the present value “somewhere between” $400 to 450 million. Guerrero softened his stance on deferrals late in the negotiations, but as we know, a deal was never struck. Guerrero was looking for a 15-year deal, buying out his last year of arbitration and adding 14 years to his stay in Toronto. To this point, all reports that have come out say the stumbling block was the dollar value, so for now we will have to assume the Jays were okay with a 14-year term, just at a lower valuation.

Toronto’s well-documented pursuit of Soto this past offseason at a reported AAV of $51 million and Shohei Ohtani the year before ($46.1 AAV after deferrals) certainly would have pushed the market upwards for both Guerrero and upcoming big-name free agents. I’m not going to argue that Guerrero is at the level or value of either of those two, but if we believe he was asking for $500 million over 14 years, that’s a $35.71 million AAV. Let’s have a look at the kind of company that would put him in.

It’s elite company no matter which way you cut it. It’s also worth noting that Guerrero is making $28.5 million this year, which lines up with the potential low-end offer displayed. You can cherry-pick any name on the list and argue whether Guerrero deserves to be above or below them. I’m firmly on the side of signing Guerrero at (almost) any cost, so I like to pick on Anthony Rendon, arguing that the homegrown four-time All-Star face of the franchise with a shelf full of awards is worth AT LEAST as much as Rendon got from the Angels. I’m not unreasonable though; I can look at the other names on the list, and at my colleague Davy Andrews’ arguments and recognize that Guerrero is asking to be valued (for a long time!) at a rate above what he has shown he deserves. (And in the interest of fairness, it’s worth noting that going into their last seasons of arbitration, Rendon had put up 23.2 fWAR while Guerrero has put up just 17.0)

What I keep coming back to, though, is how close they really were/are. If we’re to trust Rosenthal’s sources, the Jays and Guerrero were between $3.5 million and $7.1 million apart per season. Let’s split the difference and call it $5.3 million. Depending on your preferred methodology, teams are spending between $6 million and $9 million per win in free agency, so they’re less than one win apart in perceived value. In the grand scheme of things, how much is $5.3 million a year? To cherry-pick another name - it’s the same amount Gregory Soto is being paid to pitch out of the Baltimore bullpen this season. Once again we’re talking about Soto money.

Again, I’ll listen to all the reasons that the Jays should walk away from this negotiation. It’s a tonne of money — money that could be spread around and used to help fill multiple lineup holes for years to come. The contract lengths we’re talking about have almost no hope of ending well – even in the best case scenario, teams expect to be overpaying on the front end while the player is young, then end overpaying as they age – but there is a question of legacy to be considered. If the two sides had truly gotten over all those hurdles and they were down to arguing over Gregory Soto money instead of Juan Soto money, I just don’t understand how a compromise couldn’t be met.