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george castillo
six months agoOnly seven games in 2025 season toronto blue jays Reached Queens with uncertainty looming Vladimir Guerrero Jr.The future of. New York Mets Fans hope their team can finally land the impending free agent and part ways with him juan sotoThe first baseman was greeted with an especially loud cheer at Citi Field for the start of the weekend series. Guerrero and the Blue Jays failed to reach an agreement on a contract extension before an arbitrary deadline of mid-February, and the drama would not end.
Then, a few hours after the Mets finished cleaning up the weekend, suddenly it happened. The deal was historic: 14 years, $500 million with no strings attached, the third-largest contract in Major League Baseball history. The Canadian-born Guerrero, who defected from the Dominican Republic at age 16 with a famous name, would remain a Blue Jay for life. Guerrero bet on himself by turning down smaller offers and the Blue Jays by agreeing not to test free agency. And the Blue Jays bet on the homegrown star at a hefty price, while betting on other major talent in recent years. The effect was immediate.
“We didn’t start playing our best baseball until May,” Blue Jays starter max shazer Said. “But if it doesn’t get resolved, there’s going to be this cloud hanging over our season the whole time. The fact that it got resolved, in a way, makes everything okay. The outside attention is resolved. It’s no longer, ‘What’s going to happen here?’ It kind of took the elephant out of the room.”
The 26-year-old Guerrero responded in his fifth All-Star season, batting .292 with 23 home runs and an .848 OPS in 156 games. His play, combined with a rebound season george springer And Bo Bichette and a deep list of contributors led the Blue Jays from 74 wins and last place in 2024 to 94 wins, an American League East title and now, Game 3 of the American League Championship Series.
The Blue Jays can point to some potential turning points on the way to a fourth playoff appearance in six years. Seattle had a three-game sweep in early May. Bichette had a pinch-hit, go-ahead home run in the ninth inning at Texas later that month. But Guerrero’s agreement one week into the season helped pave the way for the Blue Jays to get there on Wednesday: four wins away from their first World Series appearance in 32 years.
That’s no easy feat, going 2-0 after the Mariners dominated the first two games in Toronto. But the goal Guerrero has set for herself hasn’t changed.
“For me, my goal is always to win the World Series, get the World Series here,” Guerrero said at the beginning of this postseason. “My dad, he never got a chance to win a World Series. That’s one of my goals, has always been one of my goals, to do that for me, for him.”
Travel This breakout postseason for Guerrero and the Blue Jays began more than a decade ago. In January 2015, a few months before Guerrero was eligible to sign as an international free agent, Edwin Encarnación got a call from then-Toronto general manager Alex Anthopoulos: the Blue Jays wanted to see the 15-year-old Guerrero, their top target that year, working out again in the Dominican Republic – and they needed to find a ballpark.
Encarnación, coming off an All-Star season for Toronto in 2014, contacted his contacts and a workout was arranged for Guerrero to face Cuba’s older free agents. Along with Encarnación and Blue Jays executives, including Anthopoulos and international scouting director Ismael Cruz, Guerrero convinced the decision makers.
“It was something special,” Encarnación said in Spanish on the field at Rogers Center on Monday before Game 2 of the ALCS. “Wlady was better than the Cubans. This kid at 15 had a great performance against them. He was special.”
That July, the Blue Jays used their entire international bonus pool to sign Guerrero for $3.9 million. Concerned about the uproar that being the son of a future Hall of Famer would cause, Anthopoulos asked the team’s media department to hold a low-key event when Guerrero, who was born in Montreal during his father’s tenure with the Expos, was brought to Toronto for the first time. No news conference on stage. Just batting practice on the field.
“I was worried about the last name, the hype and expectations were going to be out of this world,” said Anthopoulos, now general manager. atlanta braves“And they were anyway, as much as we tried to tone it down.”
Guerrero was no stranger to pressure when arriving as the top prospect in baseball at just 20 years old for his major league debut in 2019. The years that followed were not a linear progression. After an AL MVP runner-up season in which he hit 48 home runs with a .002 OPS in 2021, his first year as a full-time first baseman, Guerrero hit 58 home runs with a .804 OPS over the next two years. Then came another breakout last season: a .323/.396/.544 slash line with 30 home runs in 159 games, boosting his value in his platform year.
“He doesn’t get easily distracted,” Blue Jays general manager Ross Atkins said. “He’s still very human, and I think from my point of view and my point of view, the hardest part for Wladys was dealing with the expectations. Not being distracted or distracting from the field. And he embraced the expectations.”
This year, the pressure was on Guerrero to finally live up to those expectations in the postseason. They entered the AL Division Series against New York Yankees 3-for-22 with two walks, five strikeouts and no home runs in six career playoff games – all losses – spread across three different wild-card series.
Guerrero immediately defied that history in Game 1, hitting a solo home run in his first plate appearance of the postseason. In Game 2, he cracked a grand slam that will be replayed on Rogers Center highlight reels for a long time. He finished the series 9-17 with three home runs and nine RBI as the Blue Jays defeated New York in four games.
“I think he’s improved a lot in all aspects,” the Blue Jays catcher said. alejandro kirk Said. “The experience, how much he’s matured as a person. He’s no longer the 20-year-old Vladimir he was when he debuted. He’s the Vladimir he is now.”
Vladimir Vasquez saw The Blue Jays ousted the Yankees from his restaurant 5 miles north of Rogers Center last Wednesday. Born in the Dominican Republic, Vasquez moved to Toronto in 1990 when he was 11 years old and soon became a fan of the Blue Jays championship teams of the ’90s. He opened Cabacoa, a Dominican restaurant, a year and a half ago – a sign of the city’s growing Dominican community.
“I’ve been following Vladimir Guerrero Jr. since he was in the minors,” Vasquez said. “It’s funny because his father was the only elderly Dominican Vladimir I knew growing up. But it’s important for the community, for the Dominican community, to have someone so good who will be here for a long time.”
This is part of the responsibility that falls on Guerrero’s shoulders beyond playing first base and batting third. He is the only Canadian citizen on Canada’s only MLB team. His No. 27 jersey is the jersey worn by Blue Jays fans from British Columbia to Newfoundland. He’s the player the Blue Jays committed to as their cornerstone during his age-40 season in 2039 — 20 years after his debut — with the hopes he’ll end up with a Hall of Fame career of his own.
“I look up to Vladi for a long time because I’ve had a chance to play with great players,” said Scherzer, an 18-year veteran and three-time Cy Young Award winner. “I’ve had the opportunity to play with a lot of great, different players in my career. To me, he’s a perfect fit for this Prince Fielder-miguel cabrera Mould. He’s kind of a mix between those two.”
In the short term, the agreement was a sigh of relief. Perhaps, as Atkins said he would like to think, the Blue Jays would have found their footing without signing Guerrero to an extension. Two years removed from the 89-win season, the pieces were in place. But that change, which had been in place since the day Guerrero reported for spring training, was removed.
Six months later, the Blue Jays are making a dent in the back of their franchise pillar.
Blue Jays manager John Schneider said, “I think it showed our fan base and the league what we’re trying to do here in the short and long term.” “And it clears the cloud a little bit around a really good player and allows the team to say, ‘Okay, this is our guy, this is what we’re going to do.’ I think it freed everyone up in a way.”
