Jose Berrios makes his stance clear on how Blue Jays should handle their offseason

Over the past few months, the Toronto Blue Jays front office has received lots of unsolicited, frank and public advice from veteran starter and team leader Chris Bassit, ace Kevin Gausman, and now their rotation mate José Berríos.

In a Spanish language interview with sports reporter Jarniel Canales of El Vocero de Puerto Rico, Berríos was asked about the team’s pursuit of free agent Juan Soto. He said that the Blue Jays' priority should be to retain Vladimir Guerrero Jr., who could test free agency after next season absent an extension.

The 25-year-old Guerrero posted a 6.2 bWAR and was named to his fourth consecutive All-Star team in 2024. His post season accolades include a second Silver Slugger Award, placing sixth in the AL MVP vote, and being named to the All-MLB First Team for the second time in his career. MLBTR projects that Vlad will earn a $29.6M salary in his final year of arbitration in 2025, up from the $19.9M he made this year after winning his arbitration hearing.

"It would be incredible (to sign Soto), but first we have to sign Vladimir Guerrero Jr., who I understand is the pillar of the team," said the 30-year-old Puerto Rican. “When we sign 'Vlady', we can sign whoever they want. But I think the priority should be Vladimir Guerrero Jr. and then if we add Juan Soto, it would be a perfect world," said Berríos.

The righty, nicknamed ‘La Makina’ (The Machine), went 2-0 in starts on both Opening Day as well as the Home Opener, and finished 2024 with a 16-11 record and a 3.60 ERA over 192.1 innings in a solid 3rd full season with Toronto. He’s made 32 starts in each of those three years, averaging 185 innings per season to eat up 554 innings. He also won a Gold Glove in 2023, and was dealing in Game Two of the ALWC last year before getting pulled in the bottom of the 4th inning after only 47 pitches.

He has a chance to win his 100th MLB game in his next start, which could come as soon as Opening Day 2025 at Rogers Centre against the Baltimore Orioles next March 27.

Berríos can opt out of his contract after 2026

Berríos signed a seven-year, $131M extension with the Blue Jays after the 2021 season, when Toronto acquired him from Minnesota for prospects Austin Martin and Simeon Woods Richardson. But he has an opt out clause after the 2026 season, where he can forgo the final two years and $48M of his contract and become a free agent.

If he continues to pitch well and thinks he can get more years and more money than the $48M he would earn with Toronto over 2027-28, he may well want to test free agency again after what would be his age-32 season in 2026.

But therein lies a dilemma for Toronto’s front office: if they aren’t able to come to an extension agreement with Guerrero, could that be another reason for Berríos to opt out in two years?

Bassitt will likely be a free agent after 2025 if he isn’t traded before then. In August, he gave a brutally frank assessment of the Blue Jays' struggles this year, when he said, “I don't want to identify the problems because some of the problems I don't think are fixable.”

Gausman — whose contract runs through the 2026 season — followed that up in an interview with Rob Longley of the Toronto Sun on the final weekend of the regular season, saying, “I’m sick of the ‘talent’ talk. We’re so talented, this and that. We’ve got to start winning games. We’ve got to figure it out. We’ve got to do it quickly. I’m only getting older. Bassitt is only getting older. If we want it to happen with this group, it has to happen soon. So what are we going to do?”

To recap, Bassitt is likely gone after next season, if not sooner; Gausman is likely gone after 2026; and, Berríos has an opt out in his contract after the 2026 season. All three of them have offered unsolicited advice in the last few months to the Blue Jays front office, where we know CEO Mark Shapiro - who has a well documented ego - is fully immersed in all major baseball operations related decisions as part of a “collaborative” environment.

Given the fact that ‘Big Three’ have made a combined 190 starts and pitched 1,119 innings over the past two seasons, or 59% of their starts and 64% of total innings pitched by starters since the start of the 2023 season, that’s a lot of stability and continuity potentially walking out the door.

If extending Guerrero is the top priority for Berríos, let’s hope the front office takes his advice to heart and digs deep this offseason on trying to keep Vlad in Toronto as a core player along with Berríos.

After all, when Berríos agreed to his own big contract extension with the Blue Jays in November 2021, it was general manager Ross Atkins who said, “It has been our vision from the day that we got here to have a group together that the fans come to love and know for a long time. We want our players to feel the same way."

Building around Vlad and La Makina would certainly fulfil that promise to Toronto fans to extend some players to “love and know for a long time.”