What does Vladimir Guerrero Jr.’s contact extension mean for Toronto’s outlook for 2025?

He’s here to stay.

On Wednesday, the Blue Jays officially announced that they'd signed Vladimir Guerrero Jr. to a14-year $500 million deal that includes no deferrals, no opt-outs and a full no-trade clause.

Guerrero will now likely call Toronto his home for his entire professional career, which will have a huge reverberation across the present and future of the franchise. While we have years of time to speculate on how the Blue Jays will build around him in the future, here's a look at how it'll impact the Blue Jays in the short-term.

What does Guerrero Jr.’s contact extension mean for Toronto’s outlook for 2025?

Other extensions

With Guerrero locked in, the Blue Jays can now turn their attention to their other impending free agents like Bo Bichette and Chris Bassitt. While relievers Jacob Barnes, Erik Swanson, and Chad Green are also going to be free agents after the season, the Blue Jays usually take care of the bullpen in the offseason and there hasn’t been a typical urgency from this front office to extend bullpen arms mid-season.

Starting pitcher Max Scherzer is also on a one-year deal, but it’s likely the future Hall of Famer is tkaing things a year at a time.

Bassit's off to a scorching start and currently leads all of baesball with a 0.71 ERA, but it's like the 36 year-old isn't in Toronto's long-term plans.

They do have some young starter depth coming along in the likes of Jake Bloss, Rickey Tiedemann and Brandon Barriera, but it wouldn't be out of the question for the Blue Jays to offer Bassitt a one-or-two year deal.

On the other hand, Bichette will likely looking for a long-term, big money deal that could be available if he has a strong bounce-back season. Not the kind of money that Guerrero signed for, but Bichette has still been one of the best shortstops in baseball over the last four seasons. During that time his .335 BABIP and .287 batting average rank fifth among all shortstops, and his. His 50.5 offensive fWAR is ninth.

A potential contract for Bichette will likely be between Bobby Witt Jr.’s contract (11-year $288 million / $26.2 million per season) and Carlos Correa’s deal (six-year $200 million / $33.3 million per season).

Trade deadline

Guerrero's deal also gives the Blue Jays a better idea of what they will or won’t do at this year's deadline. None of the other 29 general managers in baseball will be phoning Ross Atkins to ask if he’s willing to listen about a deal involving Guerrero, which is a welcome development.

There was even speculation in the offseason that the Blue Jays could be sellers at this year's deadline, but that's likely not the case anymore. Now, barring injuries and/or underperformance, Toronto will very likely be in a buyer’s position come July.

The beauty of this deal is, even if Toronto starts to have a bad season from this point on, there won’t the dark shadow of Guerrero leaving looming over the club.

Playoff expectations

While this deal adds to the pressure of Toronto winning, 2025 is no longer a World Series or bust season for the Blue Jays. Before the signing, the Blue Jays were facing a potential reality of having a successful season only for Guerrero to leave.

That nightmare scenario of Guerrero leading the Blue Jays to a Postseason series win — or even a World Series berth — only to come up short and lose him to another team would have been one of the worst days in Toronto sports memory.

That day exists now in another timeline.

Regardless of how the Blue Jays finish this season, they have a solid core of players in their prime locked down for the foreseeable future with Guerrero, Andrés Giménez, Alejandro Kirk, Anthony Santander, José Berríos and Jeff Hoffman are inked to multi-year deals. That alone will make them potential playoff contenders year after year.