Guerrero gulf: Both sides unnecessarily risking everything

Who is more to blame for Vladimir Guerrero Jr.'s contract situation? The team or the player?

The two sides failed to reach an agreement on an extension by the deadline Guerrero imposed at the start of spring training, and they now face a season in which uncertainty looms over the horizon.

Both parties said the right things when the deadline passed, but that was before reports by Sportsnet and the New York Post uncovered the details of the Blue Jays' offer. The club presented Guerrero with a deal for $500 million with deferrals, equalling a present-day value approaching $450 million. It would have been the third-largest contract in MLB history, trailing only those of Juan Soto and Shohei Ohtani.

Ken Rosenthal of the Athletic, meanwhile, reported Guerrero's demand of $500 million without deferrals.

Assuming talks don't re-open before he enters free agency, Guerrero will walk because of a $50-million difference that would have been spread over more than a decade.

We now know it can't be claimed the Jays and parent Rogers Communications were not serious. But once the two sides got as close as they did, shouldn't the Jays have been willing to go the extra mile to secure the services of the player who has become the face of the franchise and is the top positional player to come through their farm system this century?

The Jays had seemingly put aside concerns about the diminishing value of first basemen over the last decade. The offer to Guerrero was more than double that of the biggest contracts ever awarded to free-agent first basemen - Albert Pujols' 10-year, $240-million contract and Prince Fielder's nine-year, $214-million deal. Both were signed in 2012. The biggest extension to any first baseman was the eight-year, $248-million pact Miguel Cabrera signed with Detroit in 2014.

Putting positional considerations aside, Toronto's offer was in line with the market rate for superstars. For Juan Soto's $765-million contract, the ratio of contract dollars to his last three seasons of fWAR (17.8) is 43. For Guerrero (10.1 WAR), using the present-day value of the offer ($450 million), the ratio would have been 44.6.

The negotiation process with Guerrero was likely not helped by the club's courtship of Ohtani and Soto in back-to-back offseasons. Reports were that it made competitive offers close to the value of the final deal. But those players have been demonstrably more productive than Guerrero, and the Jays ultimately did make a legitimate top-of-market offer.

The Blue Jays' biggest mistake was not making an offer too good to refuse earlier in Guerrero's career.

It won't feel good for Jays fans or the front office if Guerrero plays in another uniform next year, but not all the blame can be assigned to the club.

One can argue Guerrero is being irrational by taking on asymmetric risk. Major injury is a risk for every player. There's also performance risk, and Guerrero has been an erratic producer in his career.

He's coming off his best season since 2021, but he might need to repeat it, or better it, to top $500 million on the open market. He can't afford another campaign like his 2022 and 2023 seasons if he's chasing half a billion dollars.

We can't know all of Guerrero's motivations. Beyond the bottom line, he might want to play in a different location or with a club that he believes has a better long-term championship outlook.

Sure, the Blue Jays could have tried harder to bridge the gap, but in turning down an offer of generational wealth, Guerrero is placing an irrational amount of risk on his 2025 season.

It's a potential lose-lose situation, with each party bearing some responsibility.

The Jays could lose the face of the franchise, while Guerrero could end up signing for something less than the club offered.

To remove those risks, a gap of $50 million over a decade or more does not seem insurmountable. In fact, it seems irrational.

Guerrero's deadline was an arbitrary line in the sand. What's stopping both sides from reopening talks for a day and meeting in the middle - $475 million in present-day dollars. Who would say no to that?

Travis Sawchik is theScore's senior baseball writer.