Guerrero's eventual free agency could be pushed back from the end of '24 to the end of '25GETTY IMAGES
The Blue Jays refused to call up prospect 3B Vladimir Guerrero Jr. "throughout a summer in which he posted near-historical minor-league numbers," which has put the MLBPA "on watch," according to Shi Davidi of SPORTSNET.ca. An MLBPA spokesperson said, "The union's position on service-time manipulation is clear, Vladimir Guerrero Jr. and other great young talents around baseball have earned the right to play on the field for a major-league team. The decision to not to bring him up is a business decision, not a baseball decision. It's bad for the Blue Jays, it's bad for players and it's bad for the industry." Those comments came after Blue Jays President & CEO Mark Shapiro said that keeping Guerrero down "has nothing to do with business." Davidi noted the argument not to call up Guerrero is "unconvincing given the financial incentives for the team to delay" his arrival. Meanwhile, the business case for keeping Guerrero in the minors is "pretty convincing" in that if the Blue Jays wait roughly two weeks before "bringing him up next year, the gilt-edged prospect's eligibility for free agency would be pushed back an entire year," from the end of '24 to the end of '25. That extra season could be "quite significant" and worth "tens of millions" of dollars if Guerrero becomes the player he is projected to be. A fair argument can "certainly be made that the Blue Jays are simply executing" the CBA as it is written, and that to be "responsible stewards of the club, manipulating Guerrero's service time is the right thing to do." There is "validity to that, and any system that creates status through a counting mechanism is vulnerable to such chicanery" (SPORTSNET.ca, 9/6).
MISERY LOVES COMPANY: SPORTSNET.ca's Jonah Keri wrote for Blue Jays fans, this has been a "miserable season." The "one saving grace was supposed to be the arrival of wunderkind" Guerrero. Not promoting him to MLB is the "dumbest scenario imaginable." In what other field would a "for-profit enterprise have a product that could absolutely dazzle its customers from the moment it got introduced, only for that company to decide it's better to store that product in Storage Basement C of a faraway warehouse?" Keri: "It's time to fix this problem" (SPORTSNET.ca, 9/7).
