The Blue Jays’ core players are about to get more expensive. Vladimir Guerrero Jr. has already reached arbitration as a Super Two player, agreeing to a $7.9MM salary in his first of four passes through the arb system. Teoscar Hernandez is earning $10.65MM this year, his second of three arb seasons. Cavan Biggio, like Guerrero, qualified for Super Two and is in his first of four arb seasons, making $2.1225MM this year.
As for Bo Bichette, his two years and 63 days of service time fell shy of this year’s Super Two cutoff of 2.116, meaning he won’t be able to earn a meaningful salary increase until after this season. As for whether an extension is in the cards, the 24-year-old had told Sportsnet’s Ben Nicholson-Smith that his camp and the club have had some conversations, but that “right now we’re focused on the season and accomplishing what we think we’re capable of. Right now, we’re not talking.” Most players usually prefer not to continue extension talks into the regular season, meaning it’s likely they won’t resume until the end of this campaign, when Bichette will have reached arbitration and earned himself some more leverage in any future negotiations.
Team president/CEO Mark Shapiro doesn’t seem overly stressed about the situation. “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,” Shapiro tells Sportsnet’s Shi Davidi. “I understand fans or maybe someone externally might think you need to extend these guys. I felt that way when I was working in Cleveland. I do not feel that way working in Toronto.” That’s not to say they won’t try at all, of course. “Those players are both under control for three more seasons (beyond 2022),” Shapiro said of both Bichette and Guerrero. “That is a very long time. During that time, it’s safe to say we will continue both formally and informally to explore extensions with them. Should that not happen, we’re very comfortable that our market gives us the ability to go year to year and pay them year to year. And if they happen to get to free agency, we obviously will be a team that will pursue them in free agency, too.”
Despite a 2020 season in which the team played their home games in Buffalo with no fans, and a 2021 season in which they bounced from Dunedin to Buffalo and then back to Toronto with limited capacity, the club is running a franchise record Opening Day payroll this year. Jason Martinez of Roster Resource pegs it at $172MM, topping the $163MM from 2017, per Cot’s Baseball Contracts. However, there will be need for future moves, as a big chunk of the roster will be hitting free agency after the 2023 season, including Teoscar Hernandez, Hyun Jin Ryu, Lourdes Gurriel Jr. and Matt Chapman. “You won’t need to ask, you can just look at the attendance numbers, look at the ratings and that will give you your answer,” Shapiro said of the future spending. “If we get back to levels we were at in ’15 and ’16, we will be fine to sustain or even grow our payroll. If we do not, we will probably have to reconsider our roster.”
As for Bichette, Davidi reports that the Blue Jays offered him a salary of $747.1K for this year, just barely above the $700K league minimum. Bichette refused this offer, a move often taken by pre-arbitration players as a form of protest against compensation they consider insufficient. Whether that will hamper future relations between the two camps is unknown, but Shapiro’s comments illustrate he views the future health of the club as connected to larger issues than an individual player’s contract. As Davidi points out in his piece, the club was content to let Robbie Ray and Marcus Semien sign elsewhere, while turning to alternatives like Kevin Gausman, Matt Chapman and Yusei Kikuchi for replacements. While the merits of that strategy can be debated, the public relations will certainly be different with players like Bichette and Guerrero, who have been the focus of Jays fans since well before their debuts, as opposed to vets on short-term deals like Ray and Semien.
LOL, “meaningful salary”
“As for Bo Bichette, his two years and 63 days of service time fell shy of this year’s Super Two cutoff of 2.116, meaning he won’t be able to earn A MEANINGFUL SALARY INCREASE until after this season.”
You might want to try your reading comprehension again there, champ. All the words in a sentence matter.
Ok, sport.
The grammar police in full force…. Drop the pencil and step away from your desk.
That’s not grammar police it’s a fair point. Laughing at “meaningful salary” when that’s not what was said probably does warrant some type of correction.
Big difference between them saying he doesn’t earn meaningful money and not being eligible for a meaningful pay increase until he reaches arbitration.
You may want to try reading the posts you’re commenting on, goalie. There was no grammar correction involved.
This is another case of someone who is struggling to actually read and comprehend at the same time.
I’d sign him to 11 years/$265M
The industry standard for that amount of service time would probably be Acuna at 8 years 100 million… I’m not sure Bichette is worth more than doubling that.
The Acuna deal bought 2 Pre-arb years. Significantly different circumstances.
Time to trade them at their peak and start running the team like the Rays.
You can do a lot worse than run a team like the Rays
I think it takes at least $300 million to extend Bichette.
Don’t think so unless it’s like 13-14 years
It’s interesting that Shapiro mentioned his time in Cleveland. I’m a Cleveland fan and I’ve always thought it would be interesting to see what Chris Antonetti could do for a team with more payroll flexibility.
I think most Cleveland fans were willing to buy Shapiro’s plane ticket to Toronto when he left, but clearly he was just operating within the limits of the payroll. Now that he’s got more freedom, he and Atkins have a really good looking team that should be a legitimate World Series contender for at least the next 3-4 years (and likely more).
Sit back and see what Trea Turner brings in next year. That’ll be a solid comparison for him.
Assuming he signs something in the next year, you’re buying his arb years in any potential extension. There’s no way he gets what Turner will get based on that alone.
Of course he won’t. What he will get is bargaining power, so waiting a year before entertaining a long term deal may be in his best interest since they seem to align closely by position and offensive statistics. He could look at a Tatis like deal and carry it to his early to mid 30’s.
Bo isn’t settling for a hometown discount. No need to hurry on an extension.
Hometown discounts are absurd. The team is getting a massive discount on his first three seasons plus big discounts on the next 3-4. There’s no reason for any player to get less than full freight after that, and one could argue the team should offer a bonus to keep him around.
Extension talks are too early.
Next offseason should be meaningful Extension talks. Bo and Vlad finished one full season. Complete another phenomenal season and they will both be in strong positions together. Apart they are weaker.
Hope they have another great season, if they do. Longevity will be great for them and team success.
It has to weird to be the youngest bichette and already be at a point in your very young career where you have already surpassed your older brother and father. Bo has already contributed more to his team’s success than his father did in his entire career. But, would Bo be where he is now (and would Dante “alphonse” be a former 1st rounder) without the support a professional ball player father?
Who knows?
I’m getting tired of wasting my valuable time reading this nonsense from all of you want a be GMs. Stick to mlb the show
I have an idea. Do something else with your valuable time. Maybe brush up on the English language, and leave us “want a be” GMs in peace.
sorry for being on your lawn, Mr.
*meant for this to be a reply to OP
Because they all think they are a 350M player.
they have three years of him after this one. no need to rush to extend him.