DUNEDIN, Fla. — A perfect metaphor for the unsuccessful extension talks between Vladimir Guerrero Jr. and the Toronto Blue Jays can be found in the disparate usages of the word close by the all-star first baseman, GM Ross Atkins and president and CEO Mark Shapiro.
Guerrero, matter-of-factly, said “No,” the sides never got close to an agreement. Asked if he agreed, Atkins riffed on the definition of close, describing it as “too big of a word to talk specifically about” while being “confident that we exhausted the communication, the ideas, the thoughts and communicated every dollar.” Shapiro, meanwhile, bluntly asserted that “there’s no such thing as close or not close — it’s done or not done.”
But when even the definition of close is contentious and the sides can’t agree on how wide the gap is between them, well how were they going to align on a deal that would not only have been the richest in team history, but also among baseball’s biggest ever?
So, no surprise that we’re here then, Guerrero bound for free agency after the 2025 season, the Blue Jays’ competitive window in serious peril and the path forward in 2026 and beyond an anxiety-inducing mound of uncertainty.
“All along, I had hope to sign a deal here,” said Guerrero through an interpreter. “But especially at the end, I didn’t see the front office moving to my number. They tried. This is business. But it wasn’t the number I was looking for. Yes, I was hoping for it, but unfortunately, it didn’t happen.”
Now, it’s still possible Guerrero goes to the open market, finds it not as strong as expected and ends up returning to the Blue Jays. Or maybe it’s hot and the Blue Jays must fend off rival suitors, like the New York Yankees did with Aaron Judge in 2022, to retain their star, since Guerrero insisted again that, “I want to be a Blue Jay for the rest of my career.”
No matter what, though, first comes the type of high-risk, high-reward season the Blue Jays haven’t had since Alex Anthopoulos pulled off his epic trade-deadline makeover in 2015, leading to the club’s only American League East title since 1993 and a run to the ALCS.
A key difference is, that summer, Anthopoulos also signed a 16-year-old Guerrero as an international free agent, putting in place the type of future building block the current club currently lacks.
And if Guerrero walks and Bichette joins him, a far more likely outcome without an extension for the former, it’s going to be awfully hard to keep the current window from slamming shut.
“Certainly feel as though we have good players that are coming,” said Atkins. “Vlad is special and we’ll remain motivated to keep him here. (That) is how we’re focused on it now.”
Cold comfort there, as the way they Blue Jays focus on it doesn’t matter if they can’t better align with Guerrero on the value of his upcoming peak seasons and beyond, an issue since the first round of extension talks following Guerrero’s MVP-runner-up campaign in 2021.
Those differing outlooks prevented the Blue Jays from locking in Guerrero and fellow cornerstone Bo Bichette early in their careers — the way, for example, Atlanta did with Ronald Acuna Jr., San Diego did with Fernando Tatis Jr., Seattle did with Julio Rodriguez and Kansas City did with Bobby Witt Jr.
As a result, the Blue Jays have been left chasing the market, one influenced at the top end by Tatis’ $340-million, 14-year extension with the Padres in the spring of 2021 and Juan Soto’s $765-million, 15-year deal with Mets in free agency during the off-season.
Shapiro described those contracts as “data points within a negotiation” and pointed to others, like Mookie Betts ($365-million, 12-year extension, $115 million of it deferred, with the Dodgers in 2020) and Jose Ramirez ($124-million, five-year extension signed with Cleveland in 2022).
“When you’re not dealing in a free-agent environment, it’s an imperfect setting for determining what the value is. Everyone has to say what’s most important to them,” Shapiro added. “What’s most important to us is being able to build a championship team. Certainly easier with Vlad Guerrero in the fold. But we still have to stay disciplined to a number and to our process. In this case, 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.”
That last bit is especially telling because if the Blue Jays stretched out of their comfort zone and still didn’t get close, what’s going to change to help them better align next fall?
This time around included a meeting between Guerrero and Edward Rogers, owner and chairman of the Blue Jays and Rogers Communications Inc. (which also owns Sportnet and this website), with discussions picking up over the weekend ahead of Guerrero’s 9 p.m. Monday deadline.
Atkins said Guerrero’s camp sought some extra time as the cutoff approached and Guerrero said the final call came around 10:30 p.m., “when the front office expressed what they have, I expressed what I have.”
Given the calibre of hitter Guerrero is and that he’ll be hitting the market selling his age-27 season onward, it’s logical to think those numbers would have been at least in the $400-million to $500-million range.
The Blue Jays, Shapiro said, “have the financial wherewithal to pursue the contracts we want to pursue,” as demonstrated by bids for Soto this winter and Shohei Ohtani last winter. Though they’ve had some high-profile whiffs, “one of these days we’re going to get one of those guys,” he vowed.
In Guerrero, however, they would appear to have one of them now, making the obvious question why, if the Blue Jays were willing to ante up for that duo, they won’t for the homegrown star they know far better.
“How you come up with a value and are willing to reach certain thresholds,” said Atkins, “you have to stay disciplined and you have to stay disciplined to the fact that we are running a business.”
Of that there’s no doubt, a business facing a highly leveraged 2025 season in which Guerrero and Bichette are among the club’s pending free agents, with the contracts of Shapiro and manager John Schneider are also set to expire, with Kevin Gausman, George Springer, Alejandro Kirk and Daulton Varsho among the pending free agents after 2026.
In so many ways, Guerrero is the linchpin of it all.
“Obviously, as his friend, his teammate, I was hoping that whatever was best for him worked out. Obviously, they didn’t come to agreement, but for our team, it stays the same. We’re just trying to win,” said Bichette, who added that in his own situation, “nothing changes for me right now. Like I’ve said before, I’m concentrating on being the best player that I can be this year, helping the team win as much as I can. We’ll get to that when we get to that.”
It’s an approach Schneider endorses amid all the bigger-picture instability.
“If we start looking that far, we’re not going to be where we want to be,” he said. “The guys have been around long enough to understand the business part of it and everyone understands where people’s contracts are. To look anywhere past tomorrow or this year, we’re doing ourselves a disservice … so it’s a really good understanding from everyone that this year is this year, and we’re not going to worry about anyone’s contract or anyone’s numbers. We have a singular focus on this season.”
No matter how close or far apart the Blue Jays and Guerrero were, there’s no debate, under the circumstances, about the need for that in a season with so much riding on it for all involved.
