PHOENIX — When a player agrees to a 14-year, $500 million extension, as Toronto’s Vladimir Guerrero Jr. reportedly did Sunday night, the signing has a ripple effect.
The American League East, almost always led in spending by the New York Yankees and Boston Red Sox, now has another club knocking at the vault door.
How does that make the more reserved Baltimore Orioles feel, especially after they followed last year’s 91-win season with the free-agent losses of ace right-hander Corbin Burnes and Anthony Santander, the latter of whom signed with the Blue Jays? Considering Guerrero Jr. has hit more home runs against Baltimore (27) than any other MLB club, not very good.
“I don’t like seeing Vladdy 13 times a year,” Orioles manager Brandon Hyde said before his team opened a three-game series Monday night against the Arizona Diamondbacks, the team that added Burnes this past offseason. “If he wanted to go to Cleveland or San Diego that certainly would have been perfectly fine with me.”
But Guerrero didn’t go; after a winter of nip-and-tuck negotiations, he decided to remain in Canada. Toronto has, for years, been aching for a superstar to stay in its midst. Fans thought the organization had pulled off the remarkable signing of Shohei Ohtani two offseasons ago only for the Los Angeles Dodgers to swipe the two-way star.
Unlike Ohtani’s deal, Guerrero Jr.’s reportedly comes without deferrals.
The size of these top-end deals in MLB appear beyond what a team like the Orioles are willing to shell out at this point, although their player payroll for luxury tax purposes has jumped to $181.4 million, No. 15 in MLB, from last year’s $126.7 million, per Spotrac. The Blue Jays, with a player payroll for luxury tax purposes of $267.8 million, have slid between the Yankees ($309.5 million) and the Red Sox ($247.9 million).
“It’s the AL East for a reason, and there are superstars in the middle of just about every batting order,” Hyde said.
Except maybe the Rays, who don’t have a permanent home right now in the Tampa Bay area and are trying to compete with all these big spenders at $100.6 million.
Before signing, Guerrero was in his last year before free agency and earning $28.5 million this season. Now, his base salary will be $35.5 million for the next 14 seasons. That’s nowhere near the $51 million the New York Mets are paying Juan Soto for through 2039, or the $40 million Aaron Judge is earning from the Yanks through 2031.
But comparatively, the Orioles, who won 102 games and the division with an $89.4 million payroll two years ago, have Tyler O’Neill at $16.5 million a year as their highest-paid player.
“I think when teams spend on players, it’s good for baseball,” O’Neill said in a clubhouse interview Monday night about Guerrero’s contract. “It forces the rest of the league to be competitive in that regard as well.
“You want to see owners going out to make their teams better. At the end of the day, it’s the Major Leagues, and you want to compete against the best. That’s my take on that. I think it’s good for the game and good for the players as a whole.”
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