TORONTO — Before we get into what happened next between Vladimir Guerrero Jr. and the Toronto Blue Jays, let’s start with this — averted for the second year in a row. Arbitration is indeed the minimum requirement.
On Thursday night, the two sides agreed to a $28.5 million deal, the third-largest ever for an arbitration-eligible player. Juan Soto’s 2024 salary is $19.9 million, an increase of $8.6 million from $8 million a year ago to a record $31 million. While each case is complex, there is no reason for the Blue Jays and Guerrero to go into the hearing room next month as they did last year, when the four-time All-Star first baseman unanimously agreed to his request decision.
Well, finding necessary common ground is a good thing.
Now, whether this will be a springboard to a life extension before the deadline Guerrero set for his first full-squad workout in spring training is an entirely different matter.
The arbitration process is designed to push teams and players to reach an agreement, as both sides are generally reluctant to leave their fate to a three-person arbitration panel. Things only get to this point when both sides face insurmountable differences.
Free agency — with all the talk right now about how to evaluate Guerrero’s free-agent years — is a completely different beast, both in terms of how players are rewarded and how other teams can participate.
Since Guerrero won’t be eligible to hit the open market until after this season, finding the optimal balance between buying the 25-year-old (preventing anyone else from bidding for him) and rewarding the Blue Jays for a year of investment Points are an extra challenge early on.
So their coming together to avoid arbitration doesn’t mean there’s a natural springboard to a long-term deal, although that would clearly be better than the alternative.
So here’s the hard part, the Boston Red Sox are an interesting model for the Blue Jays to look at after finishing last in the American League East at 78-84 in 2022 and then watching Xander Bogaerts go free The player identity left and then faced a moment of truth for Rafael Devers.
Devers and the Red Sox first reached a $17.5 million deal to avoid arbitration and soon later turned it into an 11-year deal worth $331 million, starting a soft reset for them. The cornerstone was laid in trying to compete in the major leagues. league, while providing opportunities for some in-house players and stocking their farm systems.
After a midseason stretch in 2023 and 2024, the Red Sox have an enviably deep farm system, and even though they used it to acquire ace lefty Garrett Crochet, The system remains deep, supporting a growing roster they can expand upon further.
It’s not a direct parallel by any means, but with the Blue Jays’ current roster out this year and next, it’s a route the Blue Jays could take to hook up a new core.
A lot will need to happen to make that happen — the Blue Jays will obviously have to draft more effectively, statistically, for that to be possible — and they absolutely must allow Guerrero to be the bridge that leads them over the worrying abyss ahead. , reaching safety on the other side.
For these reasons, it’s no exaggeration to say that the upcoming discussion with Guerrero is the biggest in franchise history.
If he signs a long-term extension, it would easily dwarf the club’s current record deal — George Springer’s $150 million, six-year deal in 2021 — and Will have an impact on every level of the franchise for over a decade to come. The scale of such a squad decision is unprecedented in the club’s 48-year history, which perhaps explains the confusing road to this crucial point.
If he doesn’t re-sign, the Blue Jays could certainly try again in the fall when he becomes a free agent. But they also have to do asset management on their core in the meantime, which means if they fall out of playoff contention, it means demolition trades and a longer, bumpier road to the other side of the cliff. .
Through these lenses, reaching a one-year deal that avoids arbitration (even if it’s worth $28.5 million) is a no-brainer. The real hard work for the Blue Jays will be trying to lock down Guerrero for the rest of his career and dealing with all the consequences of that attempt, and time is running out.
