The inability to strike a deal is the latest blow for the 2025 Toronto Blue Jays

https://www.espn.com/mlb/story/_/id/43902038/vladimir-guerrero-jr-blue-jays-fail-reach-contract-extension

Guerrero, a four-time All-Star and son of Hall of Famer Vladimir Guerrero, said he had set a deadline of 9 p.m. Monday, but the last call from the Blue Jays came at 10:30 p.m. When asked if the team was close to what he was asking, Guerrero simply said, "No."

They could have signed him to a Tatis Jr.-like extension years ago. After striking out on the big-time free agents like Soto and Ohtani, they come crawling back to Vladdy with a lowball offer in his walk year. Well played, Jays front office!!

I don’t really know if that’s true, he doesn’t need the money and he wouldn’t have signed coming off a down season. If he turned down the guts of half a billion, what are you going to do? He’s very very good but he’s a first baseman and we just saw the market laugh at Pete Alonso for asking for a much smaller sum of money - and Pete is older but he’s also a power hitter in a defensively unimportant role.

You can dissect things and engage in both sides-isms, but the big picture is this: they signed him at age 16 and spent years grooming him to be the cornerstone of the franchise, and they're not even *remotely close* to signing him.

I might amend that verb choice there lmao

Haha point taken

Where are you seeing this was a low ball offer?

@KeeganMatheson
Mark Shapiro on the #BlueJays’ negotiations with Vladimir Guerrero Jr:
“We were emotional. We did value the player deeply, and even went past our value because we cared so deeply about him and wanted to have him here.”

what an off-putting statement

Lol i’d tell the first journo i could find that i want a trade if i heard that

“We have tenses in spanish dawg…”

I'm assuming it was a low ball offer due to the reactions of the two sides. It's clear they're nowhere close to an agreement.

i'm not a fan of this front office, but i'm not ready to put the blame 100% on them just yet. ortiz was saying Vlad should be getting 3 years, $585m; which seems crazy to me (which obviously doesn't mean thats what vladdy was asking for, but if those are the numbers some people are putting in his ear, that's not good).

i do agree they had a long time to lock him and should have done so a long time ago. i would love it if he were to be a Jay for life – but he's also been frustrating to watch at times too (the base running errors especially). and sorry to both sides this, but i wouldn't be surprised at all if that was the case. i just can't see the FO, knowing their jobs are on the line, putting all that work into guys like Soto and Ohtani etc and then phoning in the Vlad negotiations.

If they couldn't (or wouldn't) sign him then they could have traded him like the Nationals did with Soto. Letting him walk for essentially nothing (we're not there yet, but it could happen) is indefensible and will lead to firings (although Atkins and Shapiro's contracts are nearly up too). I'm not saying it's an easy situation, but these are franchise-altering decisions and it's up to the FO to make them. What's their plan? I haven't a clue.

I also think it's disingenuous of the FO to not sign him when he was underachieving (because it was too risky) and to not sign him once he breaks out again (because he's asking for too much money). There's always risk involved, you can't play "wait and see" forever. And if you don't want to take the risk, you trade him and move the club in a different direction.

Feels like given the money they spent they should see how the season plays out.

especially with our anemic minor league system... if Vlad and Bo are gone, we have an expensive pitching staff / outfield and not much to fill the shoes in 2026. they got some decent fliers at least years trade deadline, but them and guys like Barger, Orelvis and Roden aren't going to be enough.

xpost

i mean - who's to say Vlad was open to discussing an extension after his off years tho

3 years, $585m; which seems crazy to me

i assume you/they meant 13 years? that's obviously a ton of money, especially considering his body type and defensive limitations, but $45m/yr doesn't seem beyond the pale in this day and age

“ There's always risk involved, you can't play "wait and see" forever. And if you don't want to take the risk, you trade him and move the club in a different direction.”

Skywrite this over camden yards

Rogers can definitely afford that money without blinking but I don’t really get why they spent all those…loonies…? on the stadium and not the marquee star to poster it with.

ya 13 years. but paying a guy that much until he's 38 – an inconsistently decent-to-great hitter who routinely makes me cringe at horrible base-running blunders. even with rogers stupid money, i'm not making that commitment.

anyways, fun fact: i am very good friends with the guy who prints those posters! and yes, he has given me 6 foot vinyl banners, one of which hands from my deck (yes i am a giant dork)

the miguel cabrera deal got pretty ugly at the end, but i'd be surprised if many tigers fans regretted it. vlad's top similar batter through age 25 is eddie murray, and there just aren't too many guys like that around. picking up a few wins cheaply on the margins won't help if there's no foundation

(tbf, his no. 3 similar batter through age 25 is prince fielder, so yeah it's a risk!)

I'm still halfway. 1) Secretly happy that someone else is going to overpay him wildly for a couple of good-to-great seasons followed by a prolonged decline and all the frustration TT talks about; 2) embarrassed by how badly Shapiro and Atkins have handled everything--"it's disingenuous of the FO to not sign him when he was underachieving (because it was too risky) and to not sign him once he breaks out again (because he's asking for too much money)" is exactly right. I can throw up my hands and say I don't know what to do, but I'm not management.

Apparently offered Vlad half a billion dollars!

Are you sure? First thing my bowling friend told me tonight was he asked for that much.

Heyman is saying that was the offer. So grain of salt

You’re both right but the difference is deferrals vs present value - he wants present value and Jays offered deferrals

The inability to strike a deal is the latest blow for the 2025 Toronto Blue Jays.

Fucking hyped the Roden might crack the team!

He has cracked the team!

Had to look him up. That's some kind of spring, if you put any stock in that (did get him on the roster): .423/.556/.731.

He was taken 3rd overall but went very much under the radar for a while. but slashing .298/.407/.453/.860 over his minor league career, people started taking note some time in 2023

I watched some of his spring training highlights, he looked really good from what I saw. Quick, compact swing. Jays outfielders were awful on offense last year, Roden can only improve things.

Third HR for Giménez tonight.

Best cleanup hitter of our lifetime

I too was in first place three days ago (in the ILX fantasy league) and have fallen to sixth before blinking. So keeping the bandwagon at arm's length for a little longer.

Only the 10th game, but Toronto seems to be settling into something close to what they've been the past couple of years: weak offense (under four runs per game), relying on winning close games through pitching and defense. They're got a winning record and a negative run differential. This doesn't bode well. Their starters are good, but the '71 Orioles they're not; they look to have a better closer this year, but it's not enough.

Guess the thread needs a new name.
When I watched him weakly ground out to end the game today, somehow I knew. I knew this guy was about to get half a billion dollars.

Congrats to all.

bless

There you go. Good work from Shatkins.

The ability to strike a deal is the latest blow to those who want to complain about the Jays

lol Thermo. I'm definitely in that kinda headspace on this

lol thermo XD

The ability to strike a deal is the latest blow to those who want to complain about the Jays

Have you never heard Joe Walsh's "Life's Been Good"?

Was in Toronto today, so got two hours of Blair & Barker on the way home. Fans calling in, very excited. The best thing about it, I think, is what one of their guests said: you don't spend this much money unless you're ready to spend more money. So it's a big first step, but only--hopefully--a first step.

I wonder how long it is till there will be enough contenders to create a “worst contract out of these $500 million contracts” poll

Link may or may not work (Facebook): Jeff Blair from this afternoon's show.

https://www.facebook.com/watch?v=1313033066439396

(Kevin Barker unusually subdued--his schtick is usually unbearable.)

4-4 for Springer, now .455 with 8 RBI.

and tied for 2nd on the team in Home Runs! ;)

First place at 7-5!

Too small...Fangraphs has Jays at 4.8% to win the Series, sixth behind the Dodgers, Braves, Mariners, Mets, and Yankees.

When I saw a FB post from Dan Schulman referring to Buck in the past tense, thought for sure he'd died. Happily, just retired.

Was going to post about that!

But since I can’t, here’s Blake Snell having some weird meltdown on twitch about the WS?

https://www.reddit.com/r/Torontobluejays/s/mWy9UJOu9I

In case you doubt this is real, he is known for saying dumb shit on his Twitch account:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=io-MtoXIJAE

A sixty year career, more than forty years with the Blue Jays, I hope Buck enjoys retirement (and continued good health).

They've got to put him on the wall this year (ahead of Edwin, even)*...(xpost) Snell's WS interviews that I saw were so smarmy/condescending. Between him, throwing at the Jays, Ohtani's extra rest between innings in G7, and sore-loser bitterness, I learned to hate the Dodgers just like everyone else.

*Even though Margaret Atwood also is from Toronto, being put "on the wall" if you're a Jay is a good thing.

Nice farewell tweet from Chris Bassitt.

Joey Loperfido had potential for the next thread title, but not going to happen. (On the other hand, anyone named Jesus opens up lots of possibilities.)

https://www.tsn.ca/mlb/article/blue-jays-acquire-of-sanchez-from-astros-for-loperfido/

That trade was a weird one

Possible thread title for 2026, from an email today: "Loonie Dogs Is Back!" Not sure who's in charge of grammar.

Bought my first tickets for the year...won't be going to five or six games this season, for sure; cost has basically doubled ($160 for a 200-level seat around first base).

ya, the price of last years success is too much for me. was going to do a game for the kids birthdays again this year, but we cancelled that when we saw the cost. right now we just have tickets for a couple of the bobblehead giveaways

draft room open

https://i.imgflip.com/ana5cw.jpg

Wild guess: wrong thread...Including me then, that's three out of three people I know who are severely curtailing ticket purchases this year. They'll do fine if they win; if they drop out of the race mid-season, I think anger over ticket prices will become quite vocal.

fucking hell

This drastic price increase reminds me of the Seinfeld with Angela Chang, when Jerry says "You know, you're not really Chinese"..."You know, you didn't actually win the World Series."

lol omg

Posnanski picked the Jays as one of the five funnest teams in baseball:

"But then they have Alejandro Kirk. I mean, if there was a 24-hour Alejandro Kirk Truman Show channel where you just watched that guy live his daily life, I’d watch."

Meaning, in addition to Vlad...

Clement in The Player's Tribune:

https://www.theplayerstribune.com/ernie-clement-toronto-blue-jays-mlb-baseball

Who's starting this year's thread?

I suggested the very un-Grammarly "Loonie Dogs Is Back!" as a possible thread title; if anyone has something better, have at it.

The Freewheelin' Bieb/Dylan is my updated contribution

the inability to choose a thread title is the latest sign of weariness for the fans of the 2026 blue jays

The Afterglow Has Co$t Us Dearly, Toronto blue jays yadda yadda (I am very unhappy with the price increases)

That's good, and all too true.

(Thankfully, loonie dogs haven't yet turned into toonie dogs, but that's on Ross Atkins' list of things to do.)

Biding time till the new thread:

https://i.postimg.cc/65p4vSBL/pillars.jpg

Will one of the pillars be Pillar? (Sorry.)

"and to goodbye to the ted rogers statue as we toss it into the lake."

How would we ever meet up with friends, though?

by Joe Carter

exactly. or Halladay or Steib or Bautista or the Pillar.

Giddy-up; that'll be fine. Obviously, the TR statue's a joke, but it has been useful. (Same basic location for Joe?)

Now I'm cluing into what's happening (I don't actually read everything I post). As Chris Penn said in Reservoir Dogs, that's the beauty of it--we've got heritage Jays statues all over the place.

Disappointed there's no Munenori bush-party installation.

ha ha!

I guess we'll find out if the elephant in the room is still the elephant in the room. (Start the new thread, TT.)

Answered: yes.

hoffman earns another W lol

Honest to god, a FB exchange with a friend this afternoon:

Friend: "Listening to a fantasy baseball podcast and they're doing their hot takes for the season, one guy's hot take was Jeff Hoffman leads the majors in savesso... glad I’m not the only one who likes him ha"

Me: "I'd be more inclined to see him lead all relievers in wins--coughs up a bunch of leads, escapes with a win."

(Me five hours later: "Am I a genius or what?")

Schneider just apologized to Sportsnet for swearing in the postgame. They must have spoken to him at some point after last year...Good; it really got to be a bit much. Kids actually do watch.

It was like a continuation of last season. Hoffman gives up the tying HR in the ninth again (it wasn't a bad pitch though) but in this alternate history timeline, every ball finds a hole through the infield and they walk it off.

Okamoto swung the bat well. Smart approach, not trying to do too much in his first MLB game.

I’d said to my partner a high fastball would be the next logical pitch from Hoffman - or another off speed low/away since a fastball might be too obvious. The pitch was very good, perfect location - but dude had been seeing the ball well all night and was just ready for it.
I was watching at a Japanese wing house and they were giving away saki shots to celebrate okamoto’s first hit and the come from behind win. Have an awful hangover. Anyways. If we like my suggestion I can start a new thread today

"It's a genuine problem, you won't try/
To work it out at all, you just pass it by, pass it by" -- the Who, "Subsitute"

Great game, obviously, but I wish they'd do something about Hoffman. Even Schulman last night was saying how great he pitched in the postseason last year till the final game. Amnesia--beyond the superficial numbers, we all know that exactly two of those innings were meaningful: one against Seattle, when he was great and got them into the WS, and one against the Dodgers, when he wasn't great and lost it for them. It wasn't all his fault, of course, but he did lose it. The rest of the time, he pitched with big leads or when well behind. They can ride him out again and I'm sure they'll still make the playoffs, I'm sure. If that's the whole goal.

That upcoming series on the team's history looks amazing, like everyone ever is going to be in it. (Except Alomar.) One thing this franchise does exceedingly well is celebrate its past.

Would be so great if Gimenez threw up a season like '22/23; he's only 27, supposedly 100% healthy, coming off a very good postseason.

dude is weirdly clutch as hell

Vladdy unsuccesfully challenging a strike with nobody on and 2 down in the first inning is a little on the nose for the first blue jays batter challenge ever (i think it was the first, anyway)

New thread (but can’t seem to link to it without getting proxy fuled)

oh how weird, I'm getting poxy fuled also

“Managing in MLB, it’s not that hard. Tell him, Wash.” YOUR 2026 San Francisco Giants!

I strongly object to such blatant recruitment.

think we are just testing out other ilx links. for whatever reason, it won't let us plunk down a link to the new jays thread

It let me post the link with #unread at the end, but poxy fuled if I post without that. I'm working on an alert post to stet right now.