At long last, Vladimir Guerrero Jr. is a Blue Jay for life

It finally happened.

Sure, it took more than a year of posturing, leverage, negotiations and public back-and-forth, but Vladimir Guerrero Jr. is now a Blue Jay for life.

Early Monday morning, The Athletic's Ken Rosenthal reported that Guerrero and the Blue Jays are in agreement on a 14-year, $500 million extension.

According to Sportsnet's Shi Davidi, the deal doesn't have any deffered money, making it the second-richest contact in terms of present value in MLB.

The extension ends what's been a nearly two-month long saga for the Blue Jays. After missing out on Juan Soto and Pete Alonso in free agency, Guerrero and the Blue Jays entered camp seemingly at a stalemate for an extension.

Guerrero set a self-imposed deadline of Feb. 18 for an extension, and he and the team failed to reach one despite Ross Atkins saying the team gave Guerrero a "record-setting" offer. Later in camp, it came out that Guerrero was looking for a contract worth $500 million in present day value, which is exactly what he ended up securing.

As Rosenthal noted in his story for The Athletic (subscription required), Guerrero secured his contract without ever hitting free agency. In total, Guerrero's contract has an annual average value of $35.71 million, which is the 11th highest-ever.

Rosenthal says the deal came together in recent days, which makes sense given the breadcrumbs we've seen as of late.

While Guerrero and the Blue Jays had bickered about whether the slugger was worth the $500 million price tag that he was asking for, reports began to emerge over the weekend that Guerrero and the Blue Jays were close on an extension (even if Guerrero was mum about the potential extension when asked about it).

That hype reached a fever pitch on Sunday night when ESPN's Jeff Passan said that Guerrero and the Blue Jays were "heading in the right direction" when it came to an extension, and that it would be right around $500 million.

A little bit after that, the New York Post's Jon Heyman reported that the optimism about the Blue Jays to secure a $500 million deal for Guerrero was "huge."

While his contract ended up being $265 million less than Juan Soto, it's still an incredible contract, and one deserving of his worth in Toronto. In fact, it could even be a bargain. Guerrero's a Canadian citizen who has gone on the record multiple times to say that he wanted to stay in Toronto.

Had he hit free agency, the Blue Jays would have been bidding against all 29 other teams in baseball, and likely would have had to go above and beyond $500 million to stop him from being a Yankee, Met or Red Sox.

Sure, they could have locked him up for less earlier in his career, but that's water under the bridge now. Guerrero got his massive payday, and the Blue Jays locked up the face of the franchise for the next decade and a half.

Now we'll have to see if Guerrero (and the rest of the Blue Jays) can turn it into a decade and a half of winning.