Toronto Blue Jays spill on Vlad Guerrero Jr. offer: We went way past 'rational objectivity'

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DUNEDIN, Fla — How serious has the Blue Jays attempt to land Vlad Guerrero Jr. been now that the team’s homegrown superstar first baseman is on the precipice of his walk to free agency season?

Team president and CEO Mark Shapiro is willing to list the ways.

In fact, without publicly disclosing hard numbers in the protracted — and distracting — negotiations with Guerrero, Shapiro said the team went beyond its financial comfort level to try to make it happen prior to the dynamic all star’s self-imposed deadline last month.

“We have gone well past what our rational point of objectivity framing what the contract value is,” Shapiro told the Toronto Sun .

“And that is a recognition of how important he is to our fans.”

That importance apparently has a number, however. And while there has been plenty of speculation on how much beyond $500 million US on a 14-year deal the Jays went and how much the player wanted, Shapiro maintains there remains is a willingness to get a deal done.

In our wide-ranging interview this week from Shapiro’s second-floor office overlooking the team’s player development complex, the president talked about the challenges of securing a player who is undeniably the face of the franchise for the long term.

But Shapiro was emphatic in his assertion that the team wanted — and still wants — to line up Guerrero for the entirety of his big league career.

“We’d like to keep him here,” Shapiro said. “I think finding that sweet spot could be done. It could have been done this spring. It could have been done in the off-season. Maybe it gets done at some point before free agency. Or maybe free agency defines what the spot is.”

The “sweet spot” is perhaps an apt description to characterize the impasse. Shapiro is well aware that what happens on the field in 2025 could be critical to the price Guerrero gets should he hit the open market and define how many serious suitors line up to pay him.

“Maybe we both need for free agency to define that,” Shapiro said. “I remain optimistic, and will remain optimistic unless he signs with another team, that, because he wants to stay here, and we want to keep him here, that we’ll get him signed.”

Obviously Shapiro isn’t about to share his negotiation strategy and the details of how it got to the point where one of Canada’s most popular athletes is on the brink of ending his time with the only MLB team he’s known. But he did acknowledge that Guerrero’s inconsistencies through 2021 and 2024 complicated matters.

“Some of the ups and downs in his outcomes and his performances have made it more challenging,” Shapiro said. “But you’ve heard me say it before: You’re always trying to find the sweet spot of sharing risk. The players risk is he could possibly get more in free agency. Our risk is health and dips in performance.”

Despite the perception from fans — much of it fuelled by Shapiro’s comments following the 2024 season that waffled when asked if he views Guerrero as a generational player — the decade-long club president was effusive in what he believes the 26-year-old brings. Shapiro even dropped a “greatest of” mention to illustrate.

“First of all the the underlying real positive at the foundation is that he wants to remain a Blue Jay for his career — genuinely and authentically,” Shapiro said.

“I believe that and we want him to be a Blue Jay. It’s that rare opportunity to have a player who was signed, developed, got to the big leagues and has a chance to be the greatest position player in the history of the franchise.”

Shapiro recognizes the broad appeal of Guerrero as a player and how he resonates with fans. But he’s also firm in his belief that the fruits of a big contract go beyond just having him signed.

“I think the monetization comes from winning,” he said. “I’ve never seen fans come to see great players on a losing team. Very few fans do that. We’ve got to win. It’s a lot easier to win with great players and Vlad has a magnetic personality that he has a chance to amplify.”

Where the negotiations go from here — if anywhere — it remains to be seen. But furthering the authenticity of the Jays interest in Guerrero is the fact that Rogers Communications executive chairman Ed Rogers is active in the discussions.

“When it comes to Vlad, first of all ownership is updated, engaged and involved in every large-scale player acquisition,” Shapiro said. “When it comes to Vlad and (Shohei) Ohtani, those are beyond large scale. So (ownership) is integrally involved in those efforts. There was an offer made, a strategy made where they’re not informed (about) and Edward is certainly personally involved in some of those efforts as well.

“As I’ve said internally a couple of times — there’s only two people that I know are going to be here at the end of a contract we would sign with Vlad and that’s Edward and Vladdy.”

As oversized a flashpoint as the Guerrero stalemate has been — and surely will continue to be — it’s by far the biggest, but not the only talking point with a last-place Blue Jays team looking to return to respectability.

With opening day less than a week away, Shapiro was frank and transparent in our interview. On to other topics:

ON PUBLIC PERCEPTION

Yes, disgruntled Blue Jays fans, Shapiro is well aware of the angst and unrest.

“I have to be aware of it, because half of my job is the business side, and that perception makes the business side hard,” Shapiro said. “I have to also be cognizant of the only way to to really meaningfully counter that, deserved or not, is to win.”

Shapiro, then, won’t waste much time digesting the gloom.

“The things that I can control … on the business side, that is having the best possible fan experience that we can have and continuing to work to to make Rogers Center among the best ballparks in Major League Baseball, which I think wasn’t the case 10 years ago. I can control that and that’s what I’m focusing on.

“On the baseball side, it’s continuing to challenge ourselves to get better, not to double down on anything that we’ve done in the past, but to learn to adjust, to develop, to get better.”

THE TRAVAILS OF GM ROSS ATKINS

On criticism of the front office in general and GM Ross Atkins specifically, Shapiro is generally understanding although clearly not overly bothered by it.

“I think this market tends to point at executives more than you (and) maybe disproportionately from other markets,” Shapiro said. “Neither one of us spend energy thinking about too much or too little.

“The reality is that it’s a bottom line business, and there’s only one way to silence critics and that’s to continue to recommit and to focus on solutions and to find ways to get better.

“So we don’t spend a lot of time talking about the criticism, the pressure. We spend time thinking about how to get better.”

ON MAX SCHERZER

A one-year, $15.5 million US deal for a 40-year-old pitcher — future Hall of Famer or not — was always going to carry some risk.

And yes, Shapiro was well aware of that potential when he signed off on the contract.

“We took the upside play in Scherzer knowing that it was also high risk health wise,” Shapiro said. “He’s obviously pitched incredibly well here and he adds a lot of different dynamics to our team. But if he’s healthy even for a good part of the year, he has a chance to really be impactful as well.:

ON THE URGENCY OF 2025

Shapiro knows his team is coming off a last-place season. He knows, as well, that the Jays effectively haven’t won a playoff game in his 10-year regime.

So what’s the level of urgency for the season that awaits?

“I’ll answer that in two parts … One, there is always an urgency,” Shapiro said. “If you don’t feel the urgency, if you don’t feel the pressure you’re in the wrong line of work. Embracing the pressure is just part of the deal. I think you owe that to the fans.

As for what Shapiro describes as “situational urgency” he at least acknowledged the possible exit of Guerrero and Bo Bichette following this season heightens a “win now” mindset.

“It would be disingenuous for me not to say that because we have expiring contracts, because we have maturing players, that this year is an important year within the context of that definition of that definition of urgency,” Shapiro said. “I still feel that provided good outcomes this year that we will extend players. Some well known. Some expected. Some that we will find other ways because we will have success on the business side that follows winning.

“But that urgency because of the control of certain players is a fact.”

For the record, the competitor in Shapiro wouldn’t have those demands any other way.

“We were all in last year and had a bad outcome. We made adjustments. We’re all in again.”

BETTER TIMES AHEAD?

The Jays have taken their lumps — with good reason — for an inability to develop players for the big league roster, particularly on the player position side.

Shapiro is adamant that there are better times ahead, although there has to be a wait-and-see approach to that bold outlook.

“I think with the 13 players we added at the deadline (last summer), even though it was taking advantage of a bad situation,” Shapiro said. “And then we had some real, positive grown from our player development system that we’ve seen this spring.”

Shapiro wasn’t naming names on the development front, but the standout in that department is 2022 third-round pick Alan Roden, who had a spectacular spring training and made the opening day roster.

As for the players that became Blue Jays when the team was selling off in the middle of its going-nowhere season, Will Wagner would appear to the be leading prospect in that department. Acquired in the deal that sent lefty starter Yusei Kikuchi to the Astros, Wagner also had a big camp and is a favourite of the front office and coaching staff for his versatility.

“It’s a dramatic uptick in the strength of our farm system and that’s led by a few different things,” Shapiro said. “One is when you infuse the system with 13 players that are better than the 13 you let go. The prospect game is always about numbers. Some of those guys — or a lot of those guys — will contribute. Some will be far better than we think and maybe meaningfully contribute.

“Some will be role players and some will end up not impacting. And some will potentially bring us other assets.”

There are people around baseball who would dispute that notion, of course. In its most recent MLB Pipeline rankings, MLB.com has the Jays ranked as the 27th-best (or fourth worst) farm system.

Still, Shapiro is more bullish on his own staff’s evaluations than the subjective views than others.

“So yes, you can look and say where were in a really bad position a year ago system wise, but that’s part of the natural residue of winning,” he said. “I’d like us to be better than that and not accept that, by the way, but when you pick later and when you lose picks via trade that’s the reality.

“But I look up now and believe we’re in a much better spot. We have to continue to take advantage of (where we pick in the draft, starting with the eighth pick this year) and hit on that as well as other picks.

“But we’re in a pretty good spot. We’ve got some guys that are going to contribute meaningfully and impactfully and soon from our farm system.”

DID SOMEONE SAY PLAYOFFS?

There is no disputing that the biggest hole in Shapiro’s stewardship is the lack of post-season success. It’s a criticism he acknowledges, albeit with a caveat.

Shapiro has long maintained that making the playoffs is the truest test because it is achieved over a 162-game season. Once the post-season begins, random outcomes are much more of a factor.

“We need to be better,” Shapiro said. “I still believe — and I would say this to fans, that if you get in (the post-season) and if you have a team that leaves spring training with objective reason to believe that you have the potential to win the playoffs, that if you do that year after year, you will win a World Series.

“I don’t ever set the goal at the outset of the season that we need to get past a round or we need to go deeper in the playoffs. I am bitterly disappointed that we haven’t gone deeper in the playoffs, but I would probably be bitterly disappointed if we lost the World Series in Game 6.

“The goal is not to get deeper in the playoffs. The goal is to win and after the last out have that pig pile in the middle of the field.”