Vladimir Guerrero Jr. is considered the best talent in baseball. But the Toronto Blue Jays will no longer appoint him to the MLB team this year. Now team president Mark Shapiro commented on the reasons for the non-consideration.
It is a well-known fact that various organizations hold back their top talents in order to keep the service time of players under 172 days in the first year, which corresponds to one year of service time. That’s why promising rookies are usually only appointed to the MLB squad in mid-April to achieve just that.
This year, Ronald Acuna Jr. von den Braves was promoted at the end of April. Meanwhile, the White Sox are doing the same with Eloy Jimenez, who like Guerrero will not be active in the MLB again this year.
However, Blue Jay President Mark Shapiro rejected this approach to Guerrero on Wednesday. Talking to MLB Network Radio, he said: “It has nothing to do with business. It’s just that we think it’s best for him and his development that he plays and develops in Arizona. We think that when he gets here, he’ll be an influential player.”
Shapiro also did not want to rule out that Guerrero might be able to make the leap into the MLB team right from the start of the 2019 season.
Shapiro had already told of his time in Cleveland on Tuesday when Manny Ramirez, who he felt was appointed to the Indians too soon, was appointed: “I often think back to my experiences with Manny Ramirez and the fact that he was completely underdeveloped as a defender and base runner. It took years before he developed in these areas.”
Guerrero was voted Minor League Player of the Year after beating 20 home runs and 78 (1,073 OPS) in four classes.
This article was published without previous view by the Major League Baseball.