Mark Shapiro at fault for misunderstanding the Vlad mess

Time for Rogers ownership to step in and extend Guerrero Jr

There has been serious head-scratching and speculation over the course of another dismal winter of fans’ discontent. Following months of finger-pointing and frustration, with an angry consideration of evidence regarding the Blue Jays’ repeated and embarrassing failures at recruiting top-drawer free-agent players, it turns out, unlike the cliché preferred by fictional, old-school detectives, that in the case of Jays’ failure to launch, it wasn’t “the butler did it”. It seems it may be the president who is blithely at fault, chief executive, Mark Shapiro.

When Shapiro in early October, followed Ross Atkins on stage in the basement of Rogers Centre, separated by 30 minutes, each man offered his own year-end review in the aftermath of a depressing, offensively-challenged season. It was then that the president offered a strong clue about his feelings on extending Vlad Guerrero Jr.

I will admit that Griff’s The Pitch missed the clues. I had ignored the obvious, thinking that the downplaying of his homegrown superstar was just the CEO’s idea of gamesmanship, a negotiating tactic towards their most important player. It turns out, Shapiro was deadly serious. Here’s how Griff’s The Pitch misread Shapiro’s surprising comments, at the time. This is what I wrote.

“If you wanted Vladimir Guerrero Jr. to have his contract extended, you got the president’s carefully considered opinion that Vlad is not a ’generational player’ and, besides, as Atkins pointed out (earlier), they’ve got him contractually for another year.”

It seems in revisiting the gross misread that this was not gamesmanship, that Shapiro was serious and this attitude has clearly permeated the off-season and has stood in the way of recruiting other free-agents who look at the Blue Jays situation and see a window of contention that will slam on their fingers following the 2025 season.

Consider the pale-by-comparison panel of Blue Jays peers that was flown in to meet-and-greet Roki Sasaki on his Toronto visit was composed of Bo Bichette, Daulton Varsho and Chad Green (according to Ben Nicholson-Smith).

Why would anyone sign up for that? Wherefore Vlad? He has not been asked (or else refused) to help with Soto, Anthony Santander, Corbin Burnes or any free-agent of note. Meanwhile the Dodgers wheeled out a panel of their big boys, led by Shohei Ohtani, Freddie Freeman, Mookie Betts and others.

Let’s examine the Jays’ dilemma. In discussing this team’s annual, but futile, off-season pursuit of big-ticket additions, Shapiro has often thanked franchise ownership, led by Edward Rogers, for his and ownership’s cooperation and understanding when it comes to the front-office’s efforts in putting together the most competitive major-league roster possible. He feels they always listen and respond to a good argument. Money, in recent years, has been no impediment.

The fact is each time that the front office has asked in recent years, ownership reaches deep into its hi-tech pockets and gives Mark the thumbs-up to confidently participate in the legitimate pursuits of much sought-after, big-ticket items — like Ohtani, Soto, Burnes, Yosh Yamamoto and others. Unfortunately, “Show me the money” did not translate into Shohei the money.

This 2024-25 hot-stove winter, after losing out to the Mets on Soto and to the D’backs on Burnes, Shapiro, Atkins and an eager, but largely anonymous, front office, set their sights on 23-year-old RH Roki Sasaki, who was quite unlike their other swings-and-misses. The talented Japanese youngster was so eager to become a major-leaguer that he gave up his final few years in the Japanese League, placing him in the same “international free-agent” category as any 17-year-old shortstop from the Dominican Republic or Venezuela. This was as level a playing field as any of the 30 MLB teams could ever hope to find.

That premature posting of his own services by Sasaki was a personal decision and the respective club bidding, under details of a posting agreement between the two countries’ major-leagues (officially ending January 23), was restricted at the high-end to the amount each team had in its active, international signing pool, arrived at in a complicated formula that maxes out at just over $10-million per year for some high-end teams. That money does not carry over year-to-year. Use it or lose it. Surely the Jays must have a chance, they would have thought.

Another personal note. I remember back in the mid-‘70s when free-agency was a new thing and the early belief was that once a free agent reached a certain dollar-level, enough to make him and his family set for life, that free-agent players could choose where they would play and so teams on the west coast, warm weather, low taxation states and players with the ability to choose a location close to home, it would penalize teams like Montreal, Toronto and the Rust Belt cities.

That fear of difference-making considerations, other than money, failed to materialize at that time, largely because of what now can be regarded as chump-change free-agency, but the real shift in players’ abilities to consider factors other than dollar-amount has never been truer than it is now.

It’s hurt the Jays. Consider Toronto had competitive bids, even insider reports of the highest offers on the table, for guys like Soto and Burnes, but then, after that, it was those personal factors and preferences that arose to leave Shapiro and friends settling for dismal, low-on-the-podium finishes.

Thus far, this winter’s Jays recruiting process has seemed a bad miscalculation. Shapiro had convinced Rogers, privately, that the state-of-the-art Player Development Complex in Dunedin (FL), plus the huge renovations at Rogers Centre benefitting fan comfort, but most especially the Siren’s Song of new facilities for players and families, including a float tank for meditation and a barber shop, would change things and along with a strong farm system, create sustainability and a perennial contender. He had clearly advised Edward Rogers that “if you build it, they will come.”

So far, no good. That’s not to say the Jays are out of time and won’t compete in 2025. But they are out of immediate good ideas in the way they are processing the process right now. If they sign him, it’s not just paying Vlad for the next 15 years. It’s rewarding him for the first five and for what he can do for the franchise as the bright, shiny object for other young stars to follow.

Hall-of-Fame vote announced on Tuesday

The Hall-of-Fame will finally announce the list of 2025 honourees, scheduled to be inducted on a day late in July at an always fabulous and emotional outdoor ceremony in Cooperstown, New York on the shores of Otsego Lake.

As part of the BBWAA voting process since 2005 and a keen observer of likelihoods, my early projection is that OF Ichiro Suzuki, LHP CC Sabathia and LHP Billy Wagner will join the list of the immortals. In addition to those three stars, my ballot also included OF Andruw Jones, OF Carlos Beltran, RHP Felix Hernandez and C Russ Martin.