Blue Jays and Guerrero Jr share $500M Commitment

With Vlad’s 14-year extension there can be no rebuild

It’s not quite “…till death do us part”, but the marriage of a struggling major-league franchise and its best player committing to stay together for the current season and then the following 14 years is as close an oath equivalency as one finds in the world of professional team sports.

The total package dollar-figure had been out there for a few days, that Vlad Guerrero Jr has agreed to a 14-year, $500-million extension through the 2039 season. Then on Wednesday, the Blue Jays officially slipped the ring on his finger with a mid-morning press release and the terms of the pre-nup leaked out through the usual sources, adding texture to the relationship.

CONTRACT DETAILS (all amounts US-$): 1-$500-million for 14 years, from 2026-39. For context, this means at spring training of his final year, he will turn 40-years-old … 2-A full no-trade clause (benefit for Vlad), with no deferred money (benefit for Vlad) … 3-The amount of the signing bonus is $325M, with $20M of that paid out immediately in 2025, leaving $175M in actual salary, which works out for the Jays to $12.5M per year (benefits both sides).

The nonsensical signing bonus is paid out equally and annually. The $20M bonus this year is not counted against the Jays ’25 luxury-tax calculation. For the next 14 years, the remainder of the bonus works out to an annual amount of $21.79M. For luxury tax purposes the bonus, starting in 2026, will be listed by accountants as $23.21M. It works for Vlad in that If there is a work stoppage and salaries are suspended, he will still be paid his signing bonus portion. The itony is that of there is a strike, it will probably be partly because of owners trying to correct this contract and others with odd distributions of payout. Salary cap, big-market domination?

Bottom line is the average annual value for Guerrero Jr for the next 15 years, if you include his locked-in 2025 salary of $28.5M, plus the $500M extension, comes out to $35.23M per annum. That AAV (average-annual-value) ranks 11^th on the all-time list and ranks ninth among currently active contracts. The Top 5 current AAV’s in baseball are Shohei Ohtani ($70M); Juan Soto ($51M); Zach Wheeler ($42M); Aaron Judge ($40M) and Alex Bregman ($40M).

And don’t try and make the argument with me that the Dodgers accounting trick of $2M per year with $68M in deferrals (2034-43) make the Ohtani money a lesser value per year than Soto. The AAV king at $700M/10yrs. is still Shohei. Best argument I can think of? Consider that Vlad will be paid his full dollar-amount as per his contract, while overlapping Ohtani in the years 2034-39. Know that the Jays money is not being devalued to current values. So why Shohei?

When measuring the wisdom of the massive amount being spent on one Jays player, don’t focus simply on the player, but consider Vlad as a pebble being tossed into the calm waters of a pond. The pebble no longer remains the focus as it hits the water. All of a sudden, it’s the ripples the pebble creates that attract the attention as they spread to the shores.

Here are some of the ripples affected by the Guerrero Jr contract within the pond that is the Blue Jays, as the organization attempts to get its groove back.

Ripple 1: Inside the Clubhouse. When your best teammate and offensive leader plays every day and has committed to the future and with that much money going out for the next 15 years, the players and the coaching staff inside that clubhouse know that at the trade deadline there will be no fire-sales, no rebuild, Do your job as a player and you will be appreciated and valued. The pending Vlad and Bo Bichette free-agency hanging over the Blue Jays, was like a clubhouse Sword of Damocles. No more is that true. Baseball is a game of relaxed focus.

Ripple 2: In Future Free Agency. When asked on Wednesday, Jays’ GM Ross Atkins admitted that when he negotiated with any free-agent in the off-season, one of the questions that was invariably asked, at some point in the discussions, was “What about Vlad?” Now they know. The Jays struck out on Ohtani, Soto, Roki Sasaki, Pete Alonso, Corbin Burnes and many others, that fans are not aware of. How much of that was that the Vlad pebble hadn’t hit the pond?

Ripple 3: With a Skeptical Fanbase. All one needed to do this winter, was to listen to the pessimism of the fanbase, either on social media where some websites that are listed as Blue Jays Fan Sites are actually forums for whiney fans, many of whom never go the ballpark. Then when the season started, after an opening day sellout, the Jays failed to crack 30,000 attendance, in any of the next six games. This fanbase loves its Jays but, like any solid marriage, there are days when they think they hate them. Rogers Centre will feel like a Vlad honeymoon

Ripple 4: A change in how MLB views the Jays as a franchise. This may sound like the least important ripple, but consider that for the 19 years, from the late ‘90s under GM Gord Ash, through the ‘00s and GM J.P. Ricciardi, into the GM Alex Anthopoulos years, into Rogers ownership, MLB and the important national media dismissively considered Toronto a small-market team, begging for equalization handouts.

However, at some point, first in 2013, when the Jays added R.A. Dickey, Jose Reyes, Mark Buehrle and others and tried to play with the big boys in the AL East, but failed, they finally got the formula right. It began at the trade deadline in 2015-16 and, after a brief hiatus of a rebuild under Atkins and CEO Mark Shapiro, burst out in the post-pandemic fray, with Vlad and Bo as the poster-boys, Rogers finally convinced of the value of a successful sports franchise to their brand. The Vlad contract finally convinces the left-over American media doubters that weren’t paying attention. Much credit for the transition to one of the big boys goes to Shapiro.

Ripple 5: In scouting the Caribbean. Consider that Vlad Guerrero Jr might be the Jose Bautista of this generation, who was the Tony Fernandez and George Bell of the World Series generation. The Jays, the Expos and Canada have always been popular in the baseball hotbed of the Dominican Republic and across the Caribbean. This feeling will only intensify among a new generation of Dominican youngsters, who, even as young as eight-years-old, fielding groundballs in the overgrown infields and on gravel roads across the baseball-crazy country, can now dream of signing with the Blue Jays and playing with their hero, Vlad, knowing he is committed to Toronto until 2039 when an 8-year-old, now, will be 23.

Advice to fans. Pay attention to the ripples in the pond and live with the ebbs and the flows of Vlad Guerrero Jr. Trust that he will eventually hit a home run.