The Blue Jays have less than two months to lock up their superstar.
Vladimir Guerrero Jr. is a year away from free agency, and he’s given the only organization he’s ever known in professional baseball until the start of spring training to talk him out of it.
The 25-year-old, who finished sixth in American League MVP voting this past season, mentioned the deadline in an interview on Abriendo Sports, a morning radio show in the Dominican Republic.
“What they offered me is not even close to what I’m looking for,” Guerrero said in Spanish in an interview posted on YouTube on Sunday.
There have been reports of a $100-million (U.S.) gap between what the Jays are willing to pay their best homegrown player since Carlos Delgado — reportedly $340 million — and what the young slugger is asking.
Guerrero has watched as the Jays chased free agents Shohei Ohtani and Juan Soto in consecutive off-seasons, offering each in the neighbourhood of $700 million to come to Toronto. Both superstars wound up elsewhere. Vladdy is well aware that anything close to a repeat of his 2024 numbers will leave him as the most highly sought-after free agent on the market next winter.
He’s willing to negotiate a long-term extension until he reports to Dunedin, Fla. for the opening of camp, but that’s it.
The Montreal-born masher has said on multiple occasions that he loves Toronto and would like to be a Blue Jay for life. But in an end-of-season interview on “Deep Left Field,” the Star’s baseball podcast, he said: “It’s got to be a good decision for both parties, of course. I want to be here, I want to stay here. But we’ll see what happens.”
What happened since then is that Soto broke the market, signing for over $300 million (U.S.) more than Ohtani did (in present-day value) and the Jays find themselves having whiffed on the opportunity to get Guerrero locked up at a price that would now seem like a huge bargain.
By dragging their feet and not locking him up by last winter, the Jays have made it extremely likely that their young star will leave a year from now (if they don’t trade him first).
They’ve got until Valentine’s Day to change that.
