Toronto Blue Jays vs. San Francisco Giants, July 18-20

[DelAbbot]

17 games over .500 on a +26 run differential, incredible

"Knows how to win" TM

We made it. We're the new mid 2010s Kansas City Royals.

Ernie Clement leading off is our Alcides Escobar

[bluerap23]

I am the biggest Shatkins critic out there. I've thought about starting a fire shatkins petition. But I am also rational. They definitely fumbled the situation though. They could have locked him up for WAY less if they did it last year. And if they weren't going to do that they should have traded him at last year's deadline.

1) Both Vlad and Bo come from money. There is zero indication that either player had any interest in locking down a long term deal at points in their career that are convenient to your argument (ie: Vlad after a down season). On the contrary, it is very clear that both were very happy to test the open open market. You have no knowledge of what they did or didn't try to do, so don't play stupid and act like you know what he would or wouldn't agree to when its clear that they had been negotiating with him for 2+ years. Why the hell would Guerrero sign a long-term extension last year coming off a 116 wRC+ season wherein he was playing considerably worse than he is today, when he had two years left on his deal to bet on himself? Again, this isn't some poor kid from the DR - his father was a HOF player and he has an uncle that also played in the MLB.

The answer is that he wouldn't, otherwise the deal would have been done 1-2 years ago.

2) I've already explained this, but his $500M extension has a considerable amount of GOODWILL tied to it that has nothing to do with his performance. This has always been known, because on a pure WAR/$ basis there was obviously no way that he would provide that amount of value. He would basically need to perform like Albert Pujols for an 8-9 year stretch, and no, I can assure you that Shapiro and company didn't think that they were signing prime Pujols when they finalized that $500M contract.

You all fail to realize the immense tone-changing nature of what his $500M deal actually represents, and why it was important for them to OVERPAY to stabilize the direction of the team. Guerrero/BIchette/Springer was supposed to be the World Series core coming off that 2021 season. The team ultimately stagnated and didn't progress as expected from 2022-2023, leading up to last year where like you said: most everyone was ready to fire the front office and start a complete rebuild. The Guerrero investment solidified the winning expectation of the 2025 season, whereas what is the VIBE of the franchise if you walk into 2025 with neither Guerrero nor Bichette signed, or worse yet: Guerrero traded? If you trade Guerrero then you are rebuilding and expecting a completely new front office, in which case who knows WTF the long-term future of the Blue Jays is. Instead, they chose to make a statement signing which showed a commitment to the current core. This is all a prerequisite to the 1st place team that you see today. As stupid as it sounds, it also solidifies the Blue Jays as a serious team that isn't just going to fold over. Lots of people talk about the lockout season as the reason why the Expos are no longer in Montreal, but the failure to retain home-grown stars like Larry Walker is an unheralded event that they never recovered from.

Enjoy the damn team while they are winning. It's a 14 year contract; he will have seasons where he will look like an MVP hitter again - I promise. He is obviously a hot/cold hitter. No, he's not going to be an 80 wRC+ hitter over the next 14 years (which is what everyone is now complaining about, considering that he was a 140-150 wRC+ hitter in May and June).

The reason they could have locked him up for WAY less a year earlier is because the MLB free agent market landscape was different. As soon as Juan Soto signed that contract it completely shifted the market. Prior to that we were looking at Aaron Judge money. If they couldn't get a deal done they should have traded him. I'm enjoying the product on the field this year, just don't enjoy the front office track record the last decade.