MLB insider says Blue Jays ‘need to pay’ Vladimir Guerrero Jr.

The start of spring training has come and gone, and the biggest story surrounding the Toronto Blue Jays is Vladimir Guerrero Jr.’s lack of a contract and what it means for the rest of the Blue Jays season.

While both Guerrero and the Blue Jays’ front office have both talked about what was offered in extension talks, it’s clear that both sides were never really close. 

According to a new report from ESPN’s Buster Olney, that shouldn’t be a roadblock in the Blue Jays reaching an extension with Guerrero.

MLB insider says Blue Jays ‘need to pay’ Vladimir Guerrero Jr.

In his new column for ESPN, Olney said that the Blue Jays should do whatever they can to keep Guerrero in Canada. 

“Assuming Guerrero isn't asking the Blue Jays to match Juan Soto's $765 million contract, they should just say yes to whatever they said no to a week ago,” Olney wrote for ESPN.

"Allowing Guerrero to reach free agency makes no sense given the Jays' handling of his career and his contract situation. Time after time, Toronto leadership put off a hard decision on Guerrero, and now the team has to pay the price. The only question is whether the cost comes in Guerrero's departure, or in his retention."

Olney also compared keeping an extension-less Guerrero to the 2023  Los Angeles Angels, who decided to keep Shohei Ohtani for one last season despite failing to reach an extension with the two-way star. 

The Angels ended up going 73-89 in their last season with Ohtani before losing him for nothing when he signed with the Dodgers on a 10-year, $700 million contract. 

While the Blue Jays could always elect to trade Guerrero at the deadline and hope that a bidding war drives up Guerrero’s asking price, the biggest win for all sides would be for Guerrero to sign an extension with the Blue Jays. 

He’s a Canadian citizen who has said multiple times that he wants to spend his entire career in Toronto, but also seems to have set a firm value for himself and isn’t willing to waiver from that. 

But it didn’t need to get here. As pointed out by Olney, both the Royals and Guardians worked to get contract extensions with their superstar players (Bobby Witt Jr. and José Ramírez, respectively), but the Jays instead waited to engage in extension talks with Guerrero, which is the team’s precedent.

"As research by Paul Hembekides shows, since 2019 the Jays re-signed José Berríos to a seven-year, $131 million deal and Randal Grichuk to a five-year, $52 million contract. Nobody else got more than three years,” writes Olney. 

The biggest factor in this seems to be the 15-year, $765 million contract Juan Soto signed with the Mets in the offseason. The Blue Jays were one of the finalists for Soto, which means they likely knew that Soto’s contract would end up being one of the most expensive in MLB history. 

And Toronto's front office also should have known that that rising ride would lift all boats — Guerrero’s included. 

“The Jays had knowledge other teams did not, and once more, they had the option of pushing the talks to a resolution -- deal or no deal -- and if not, then trade him,” writes Olney. 

Now it’ll likely take a contract in the $600 million range to sign Guerrero. 

“It’ll probably be $600 million+ to sign him,” MLB insider Jon Heyman said in a video segment with Bleacher Report. “I think the Blue Jays stepped out and offered more than they wanted to but didn’t offer enough.”

Guerrero isn’t a perfect player, and he’ll likely end up being a full-time DH by the middle of any long-term contract, but that’s the same situation that the Mets will have with Soto (and the Blue Jays would have had with Soto had he signed with Toronto). 

Guerrero’s a talented, young hitter who seems to love everything about being in Toronto. We’ll now have to wait the entire season to see if that ends up being enough.