Vladimir Guerrero Jr.

Blue Jays slugger Vladimir Guerrero Jr. suffered some right knee soreness while running the bases during a Spring Training game on Friday, and an MRI revealed minor inflammation but no structural damage.  Manager John Schneider told reporters (including MLB.com’s Keegan Matheson) that Guerrero is “just doing treatment today and staying off of his feet,” in the hopes that the short rest will help correct what appears to be a relatively minor issue for now.

Unfortunately for Guerrero and the Dominican Republic’s national team, however, the timing of the injury occurred just before Guerrero was preparing to join the D.R. club in advance of the World Baseball Classic.  As a result, Guerrero has pulled out of what would have been his first WBC appearance.  Naturally, Guerrero and the Jays don’t want to risk further injury under any circumstance, and especially not since the full extent of Guerrero’s knee problem isn’t yet known.

Guerrero is perhaps the cornerstone of a Blue Jays team that hopes to contend for a World Series title in 2023, and the two-time All-Star is looking to rebound in some sense from his 2022 campaign.  While Guerrero hit .274/.339/.480 with 32 home runs in 708 plate appearances in 2022, this 132 wRC+ performance still represented a step down from his 166 wRC+ in 2021.  Guerrero hit .311/.401/.601 with 48 homers in 698 PA that season (leading the league in OBP, slugging percentage, and home runs) and finished second in AL MVP voting behind Shohei Ohtani.

As Matheson notes, Brandon Belt and Cavan Biggio are the top choices to fill in at first base if Guerrero has to miss any significant time, though Belt hasn’t started yet started playing spring games.  Coming off a pair of injury-shortened seasons, Belt was being brought along slowly, and the Blue Jays intended to use him primarily as a DH this season with Guerrero locked in at first base.  Whit Merrifield also has a bit of experience at first base, albeit with only 15 big league games at the position over his seven MLB seasons.

Vladimir Guerrero Jr. and the Blue Jays agreed to a one-year, $7.9MM deal to avoid arbitration, though the Jays also had some interest in discussing a longer-term contract, Jon Heyman of The New York Post reports.  However, Guerrero and his representatives at Magnus Sports preferred to wait until after the season before “exploring something significant.”

As a Super Two player, Guerrero still has three more years of arbitration eligibility, so he isn’t scheduled for free agency until after the 2025 season.  Guerrero will be only 27 years old on Opening Day 2026, so it would be likely that Guerrero could command a decade-long (or more) free agent contract if he keeps up his current level of production.

The 2025-26 offseason is a long ways away, yet Guerrero may already seem like a pretty safe bet.  Regarded as baseball’s best prospect prior to his 2019 debut, Guerrero posted good numbers in his first two big league seasons before exploding to 48 home runs and a .311/.401/.601 slash line over 698 plate appearances in 2021.  This performance earned him a Silver Slugger, the AL Hank Aaron Award, an All-Star nod, and a second-place finish in AL MVP voting.

Guerrero hasn’t missed a beat in the early days of the 2022 season, hitting five more homers over his first 32 PA.  As much negotiating leverage as Guerrero and his camp already has in contract talks, that leverage would only grow if Guerrero delivers another MVP-level season.  Waiting until next winter to discuss a long-term extension also carries some risk of injury or a dropoff in performance, though Guerrero already has the financial security of this season’s $7.9MM, some type of arbitration raise for next year’s salary, his $3.9MM signing bonus as an amateur, and three seasons of minimum salaries.

In short, the only real question with a Guerrero extension might be how it would stack up against the largest contracts in baseball history.  Going beyond the $300MM threshold seems a given, and considering Guerrero’s age, his agents can make a case that their client should top Mookie Betts’ 12-year, $365MM extension with the Dodgers as the biggest “new money” deal ever.  (Mike Trout’s current extension with the Angels gave him only $360MM in additional guarantees, as Trout was already owed $66.5MM over the final two seasons of his previous contract.)

As a first-base only player, Guerrero is a bit more of a defensive question mark than Betts, Trout, Francisco Lindor, Fernando Tatis Jr., or other high-salaried players who play more premium defensive positions.  However, Guerrero acquitted himself quite well at first base in 2021, posting +2 Defensive Runs Saved and +2.5 UZR/150 (though the Outs Above Average metric rated him a -3).

Bo Bichette’s status is another factor, as the young shortstop has also made himself a candidate for a very lucrative extension.  Bichette recently said that his agents had some extension talks with the Jays but nothing really materialized, and like Guerrero, Bichette is also a free agent after 2025.  Blue Jays president/CEO Mark Shapiro said that “during that time, it’s safe to say we will continue both formally and informally to explore extensions with” the two players, and that “it’s not like we are a small market where if it gets towards the end of the contract and we can’t extend them, we need to panic and trade them for prospects.”  Jose Berrios, Kevin Gausman, and George Springer are the only players signed beyond the 2025 season, so Toronto does have long-term space available for inking one or both of Guerrero and Bichette.