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Toronto Blue Jays All-Star, Gold Glover Beats Team in Arbitration Hearing

Toronto Blue Jays' All-Star first baseman Vladimir Guerrero Jr. has beaten the team in his arbitration hearing. As a result, he'll be paid nearly $20 million for the 2024 season, while the Jays had wanted to pay him about $18 million.
Brady Farkas|
Toronto Blue Jays All-Star, Gold Glover Beats Team in Arbitration Hearing
Toronto Blue Jays All-Star, Gold Glover Beats Team in Arbitration Hearing

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Toronto Blue Jays

Toronto Blue Jays' All-Star first baseman Vladimir Guerrero Jr. will make nearly $20 million in arbitration this season after beating the team in court.

Per Shi Dividi of Sportsnet:

Arbitrators rule in favour of Vladimir Guerrero Jr., per source. He will earn $19.9m from the Blue Jays this season.

The Jays had wanted to pay the slugger just over $18 million, so this is a significant win for Guerrero Jr. It's never seen as a good thing when a player and a team go to court, so we'll see how this affects the relationship between the two sides moving forward.

Guerrero Jr. will have to go through arbitration one more time next offseason and he'll be a free agent after the 2025 season. Will this situation stick negatively in his mind as it has for other players in the past when it comes time to negotiate a potential long-term deal?

Despite the victory in court, Guerrero is coming off a relative down year in Toronto, where he hit .264 with 26 homers. He is still one of the more productive hitters in baseball, though. After making his debut in 2016, he's a lifetime .279 hitter with 130 home runs. He led the league in homers in the 2021 season.

Through five years, he's already a three-time All-Star, a Home Run Derby champion and a Gold Glover.

The Blue Jays finished third in the American League East in 2023. They were swept in the wild card round of the playoffs by the Minnesota Twins, marking the second straight year the Jays had been swept in that round.

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Brady Farkas
BRADY FARKAS

Brady Farkas is a baseball writer for Fastball on Sports Illustrated/FanNation and the host of 'The Payoff Pitch' podcast which can be found on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. Videos on baseball also posted to YouTube. Brady has spent nearly a decade in sports talk radio and is a graduate of Oswego State University. You can follow him on Twitter @WDEVRadioBrady. 

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