The inability to strike a deal is the latest blow for the 2025 Toronto Blue Jays

https://www.espn.com/mlb/story/_/id/43902038/vladimir-guerrero-jr-blue-jays-fail-reach-contract-extension

Guerrero, a four-time All-Star and son of Hall of Famer Vladimir Guerrero, said he had set a deadline of 9 p.m. Monday, but the last call from the Blue Jays came at 10:30 p.m. When asked if the team was close to what he was asking, Guerrero simply said, "No."

They could have signed him to a Tatis Jr.-like extension years ago. After striking out on the big-time free agents like Soto and Ohtani, they come crawling back to Vladdy with a lowball offer in his walk year. Well played, Jays front office!!

I don’t really know if that’s true, he doesn’t need the money and he wouldn’t have signed coming off a down season. If he turned down the guts of half a billion, what are you going to do? He’s very very good but he’s a first baseman and we just saw the market laugh at Pete Alonso for asking for a much smaller sum of money - and Pete is older but he’s also a power hitter in a defensively unimportant role.

You can dissect things and engage in both sides-isms, but the big picture is this: they signed him at age 16 and spent years grooming him to be the cornerstone of the franchise, and they're not even *remotely close* to signing him.

I might amend that verb choice there lmao

Haha point taken

Where are you seeing this was a low ball offer?

@KeeganMatheson
Mark Shapiro on the #BlueJays’ negotiations with Vladimir Guerrero Jr:
“We were emotional. We did value the player deeply, and even went past our value because we cared so deeply about him and wanted to have him here.”

what an off-putting statement

Lol i’d tell the first journo i could find that i want a trade if i heard that

“We have tenses in spanish dawg…”

I'm assuming it was a low ball offer due to the reactions of the two sides. It's clear they're nowhere close to an agreement.

i'm not a fan of this front office, but i'm not ready to put the blame 100% on them just yet. ortiz was saying Vlad should be getting 3 years, $585m; which seems crazy to me (which obviously doesn't mean thats what vladdy was asking for, but if those are the numbers some people are putting in his ear, that's not good).

i do agree they had a long time to lock him and should have done so a long time ago. i would love it if he were to be a Jay for life – but he's also been frustrating to watch at times too (the base running errors especially). and sorry to both sides this, but i wouldn't be surprised at all if that was the case. i just can't see the FO, knowing their jobs are on the line, putting all that work into guys like Soto and Ohtani etc and then phoning in the Vlad negotiations.

If they couldn't (or wouldn't) sign him then they could have traded him like the Nationals did with Soto. Letting him walk for essentially nothing (we're not there yet, but it could happen) is indefensible and will lead to firings (although Atkins and Shapiro's contracts are nearly up too). I'm not saying it's an easy situation, but these are franchise-altering decisions and it's up to the FO to make them. What's their plan? I haven't a clue.

I also think it's disingenuous of the FO to not sign him when he was underachieving (because it was too risky) and to not sign him once he breaks out again (because he's asking for too much money). There's always risk involved, you can't play "wait and see" forever. And if you don't want to take the risk, you trade him and move the club in a different direction.

Feels like given the money they spent they should see how the season plays out.

especially with our anemic minor league system... if Vlad and Bo are gone, we have an expensive pitching staff / outfield and not much to fill the shoes in 2026. they got some decent fliers at least years trade deadline, but them and guys like Barger, Orelvis and Roden aren't going to be enough.

xpost

i mean - who's to say Vlad was open to discussing an extension after his off years tho

3 years, $585m; which seems crazy to me

i assume you/they meant 13 years? that's obviously a ton of money, especially considering his body type and defensive limitations, but $45m/yr doesn't seem beyond the pale in this day and age

“ There's always risk involved, you can't play "wait and see" forever. And if you don't want to take the risk, you trade him and move the club in a different direction.”

Skywrite this over camden yards

Rogers can definitely afford that money without blinking but I don’t really get why they spent all those…loonies…? on the stadium and not the marquee star to poster it with.

ya 13 years. but paying a guy that much until he's 38 – an inconsistently decent-to-great hitter who routinely makes me cringe at horrible base-running blunders. even with rogers stupid money, i'm not making that commitment.

anyways, fun fact: i am very good friends with the guy who prints those posters! and yes, he has given me 6 foot vinyl banners, one of which hands from my deck (yes i am a giant dork)

the miguel cabrera deal got pretty ugly at the end, but i'd be surprised if many tigers fans regretted it. vlad's top similar batter through age 25 is eddie murray, and there just aren't too many guys like that around. picking up a few wins cheaply on the margins won't help if there's no foundation

(tbf, his no. 3 similar batter through age 25 is prince fielder, so yeah it's a risk!)

I'm still halfway. 1) Secretly happy that someone else is going to overpay him wildly for a couple of good-to-great seasons followed by a prolonged decline and all the frustration TT talks about; 2) embarrassed by how badly Shapiro and Atkins have handled everything--"it's disingenuous of the FO to not sign him when he was underachieving (because it was too risky) and to not sign him once he breaks out again (because he's asking for too much money)" is exactly right. I can throw up my hands and say I don't know what to do, but I'm not management.