The Philadelphia Phillies have lit plenty of money on fire in recent years. Disastrous contracts for Taijuan Walker and Nick Castellanos ended in early releases, while mega-deals for established stars Aaron Nola and Trea Turner haven’t been much better. Phillies fans have every reason to be upset with management for the horrible job they’ve done allocating resources. Thankfully, misery loves company and Toronto Blue Jays star Vladimir Guerrero Jr. just gave them plenty of that.
Guerrero has been the face of the Jays for eight years now, ever since his major league debut back in 2019. Overall, the stocky first baseman has a spectacular .285/.362/.478 slash line across 1,117 career games with 192 home runs. Vladdy is doing his best to catch up to his Hall of Fame father, stuffing his trophy case with two Louisville Slugger Silver Slugger Awards, a Gold Glove, an ALCS MVP and six All-Star selections. Simply put: he’s been one of the best players in the sport for the better part of the decade.
That elite résumé made it no surprise when Toronto inked Guerrero to a massive 14-year, $500 million contract extension early last season, and he rewarded them handsomely with a typically excellent 2025 campaign and an historic playoff run en route to the Jays taking home the American League pennant. At just 27 years old coming into this season, it seemed Vladdy was set to go nuclear.
And then nothing happened. The husky first sacker has limped to a .695 OPS in 142 contests this year, easily the worst of his career. Moreover, he has hit a measly nine homers, a mystifying power outage from a slugger who paced all of baseball with 48 back in 2021. A lot of Jays fans are miffed with their underperforming star, and justifiably so, as his whopper of a contract is eating up almost 15% of the team’s payroll with little to show for it.
The 2026 season has been a disaster for all parties, as Guerrero has turned in easily his worst performance while the defending American League champions failed to reach the postseason. Somehow, things got even worse on Wednesday.
Vladimir Guerrero Jr. just became public enemy number one for Blue Jays fans, and that should make Philadelphians feel a little bit better
The mercurial star ran his mouth in an interview with Noticias Telemicro’s Veronica Batista. In his native Spanish, Guerrero claimed “The money they [the Blue Jays] gave me wasn’t for what I’m going to do. It was for what I already did. They didn’t pay me because I’m going to hit 40 [home runs] every year, they paid me for what I already accomplished.”
There’s a kernel of truth in what Guerrero said, as his strong body of work is what led to his massive payday. After all, MLB teams don’t tend to hand out contracts worth a half-billion dollars to players that haven’t done anything before. And yet, he’s completely missing the point.
Guerrero’s mega-deal wasn’t a proverbial gold watch as he rode into the sunset. At 27 years old, he’s most likely entering his prime athletic years. The Jays weren’t simply handing him a sack full of cash for a job well done. They were paying for future performance just as much as past.
The Blue Jays and their fans clearly expected Vladdy to continue his dominance well into the length of that contract (although certainly not for the entirety of it, as he’ll be 40 years old when it comes to an end). After all, $500 million puts Vladimir Guerrero Jr. ahead of the yearly gross domestic product of a handful of small nations.
Predictably, Guerrero became the target of public ire for his tone deaf remarks, but he still refused to walk them back. Any hope that the firestorm could have been the result of a mistranslation or slip of the tongue was quickly dismissed, as Guerrero publicly stated (through an interpreter), “No, I don't regret myself. I'm not lying with what I say. I understand some fans, they don't understand… what I was trying to say specifically, but what I said is the way I feel.” Well, that appears to be that.
When Vladimir Guerrero Jr. was asked if he regrets his comments (by @MitchBannon):
— Keegan Matheson (@KeeganMatheson) September 23, 2026
"No, I don't regret myself. I'm not lying with what I say. I understand some fans, they don't understant the way and what I was trying to say specifically, but what I said is the way I feel."
So how does this all circle back to the Phillies? Simple: the Phillies have a few albatross contracts of their own, but none of those guys have put on this sort of public relations disaster class. Nick Castellanos was the most Guerrero-esque in his lack of shame and flouting of authority, but even he had plenty of defenders when the Phils finally pulled the plug. Most importantly, despite his myriad indiscretions, Castellanos never put on such an outward display of apathy towards the team and fans that make his career viable.
Just imagine an alternate reality in which Trea Turner said something akin to Vladdy’s statements. A red-clad mob would be marching down Broad Street with pitchforks sharpened within a few hours.
Phillies fans have all the reason in the world to be upset with Turner, Nola, Castellanos, Walker or anyone else who cashed a gargantuan check and failed to live up to it. Performance on the field trumps everything, and to varying degrees none of those guys have performed as they should have.
However, there hasn’t been any reason to question the work ethic or integrity of the Phillies’ glut of overpaid mistakes, and that has to count for something. So, the next time Trea Turner hangs his head after hitting a weak popup on the infield, Phillies fans would be wise to remember that at least he cares.
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