Update: Vlad Jr.'s Contract Demands
About a month ago I wrote about the Blue Jays allowing Vlad Guerrero, Jr.’s deadline to extend his contract to lapse without anything getting done. I’m sure plenty of reasons went into that decision, one of which might have been the extreme similarities between Orlando Cepeda and Guerrero through the same age, and the distinct performance decline Cepeda suffered after that.
Then & Now: Cepeda vs. Vladdy Jr.
This past Tuesday was the deadline Vladimir Guerrero, Jr. set to have a new contract worked out with the Toronto Blue Jays. Like a lot of athletes going into the final year of a deal, they don’t want it to be a constant distraction during the season and prefer to have any extension done before the year starts. They also want to apply some pressure to their current team to get that deal done.
Surely that wasn’t the main reason, but I’m a baseball history guy, and that whole thing about “Those that fail to learn from history are doomed to repeat it” that’s been attributed to several people in the past carries a fair amount of truth. Modern front offices absolutely consider aging patterns, and body types, and use comparable players in their evaluations. Scouts will report that a prospect reminds them of a more established player, and both sides in salary arbitration hearings use players with similar performance to guide the compensation they feel is warranted. It’s standard.
That said, I’m sure the comparison to Cepeda, or any other previous player, took a backseat in these discussions to cold, hard cash. That’s the number one factor in all contract negotiations. Everything else is just window dressing. Even God takes a back seat to money sometimes, considering that Reggie White once famously said God led him to sign with the Packers but he absolutely would have signed with the 49ers if they’d offered more money.
In light of that, the recent revelations about the money Guerrero was asking for seem pretty important, especially since it was a bit more than folks originally thought.
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