Toronto Blue Jays first baseman Vladimir Guerrero Jr. is now only a week away from starting his closing season earlier than qualifying without cost company. Whereas Guerrero’s self-appointed deadline for reaching an extension to stay in Toronto has lengthy handed, that did not cease Blue Jays group president Mark Shapiro from providing robust feedback in regards to the membership’s curiosity in retaining their star slugger.
“I feel we’ll signal him. I feel we’ll prolong him,” Shapiro stated on Thursday, in response to MLB.com. “The rationale I really feel that method is as a result of now we have such a transparent alignment on the specified consequence.”
These are uncharacteristic feedback for any government to make on the report and with no deal in place, however particularly one with Shapiro’s historical past of enjoying issues near the vest. It is now a certainty that Shapiro’s phrases will likely be held towards him if the Blue Jays fail to maintain Guerrero.
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Shapiro, once more with uncommon candor, defined that he believes attendance is correlated extra with successful video games than using star gamers. He acknowledged that there are uncommon exceptions, legacy gamers from “Brooks Robinson to Cal Ripken Jr. to Kirby Puckett,” and that he thinks Guerrero — who was born in Canada and up to now has spent his profession with the Blue Jays — is perhaps one for Toronto.
“Let me be clear. There’s solely been one participant in my time in Main League Baseball who had a advertising case that considerably and meaningfully offset the worth of his contract. One participant. Just one,” Shapiro stated.
“In each different case, I might say the one different factor that really sells tickets within the tons of of hundreds is successful. There are gamers who’ve magnetic personalities, like Vlad, who amplify successful and might actually assist, however followers do not come to see nice gamers on shedding groups. We have to win to have followers come within the largest numbers doable. Vlad is part of serving to us win and he is a participant that has an opportunity to be a really particular participant for a era of Blue Jays followers.”
Even so, it is unclear if the Blue Jays can ship on Shapiro’s declaration. Guerrero is reportedly in search of $500 million in present-day worth. The Blue Jays, in the meantime, had provided someplace between $400 and $450 million. It stands to motive that Guerrero’s price ticket is not going to decline the nearer he will get to the open market, with the potential for then creating further leverage as soon as the offseason rolls round by partaking in negotiations with groups apart from the Blue Jays themselves.
“I’ve all the time felt good about the entire thing. I am good with that. Simply going to maintain working very onerous and be optimistic, too,” Guerrero instructed Sportsnet in response to Shapiro’s feedback. “Not going to close the door on them… I will be open. However I’ll depart that to my brokers to work with that. If there’s one thing there, they are going to proceed to work with that. I am simply going to be on the sphere, specializing in my teammates, on my group, on my sport.”
Guerrero, 26, is predicted to be the high free agent out there this winter. For his profession, he is hit .288/.363/.500 (137 OPS+) with 160 house runs and 21.3 Wins Above Alternative. He is earned 4 All-Star Recreation designations in addition to a Gold Glove and two Silver Slugger Awards.
