How baseball’s need for deadlines may impact Blue Jays and Guerrero

BRADENTON, Fla. — Expect the negotiations on a long-term extension between Vladimir Guerrero Jr. and the Toronto Blue Jays to go right down to the wire. 

Why?

When it comes to making deals across the board — in free agency, at the trade deadline, in salary arbitration, during the draft — that’s simply baseball’s way.

“Deadlines drive decisions,” said Derek Falvey, president of baseball operations for the Minnesota Twins.

“Most times, deadlines and momentum get deals done,” said Alex Anthopoulos, president of baseball operations and general manager for the Atlanta Braves.

“I've noticed that things don't really happen in our business until deadlines kick in,” said Baltimore Orioles general manager Mike Elias.

OK, sure. 

But can baseball, say, not do that and maybe be a little more proactive?

“Not without a deadline,” quipped Ben Cherington, general manager of the Pittsburgh Pirates. “The train may be out of the station on that because the industry is full of people that are really attuned to data and fighting for the eighth decimal point of value on everything. Some of that is because of the data revolution, and some of that is just because of the business mindset and competitiveness. I just don't see that turning around.

“That's largely why sometimes these things drag on,” Cherington continued, “because we're just fighting so hard on the margins. The old days where you just get something done over a cup of coffee or a drink or something, it's just much less likely to happen. So I don't think it speeds up until you have a deadline.”

To that end, Guerrero’s decision to cut off extension talks if a deal isn’t agreed to by Tuesday, when the Blue Jays hold their first full-squad workout of the spring, is forcing an end game on the off-and-on discussions the sides have had over the past three years.

Blue Jays GM Ross Atkins, joining several of his colleagues during a spring training media day at LECOM Park on Friday, didn’t want to speak for Guerrero when asked if he thought the deadline was a good thing for their talks.

“But,” he added, “we all know that you do get to some form of resolution with a deadline.”

While hesitant to get into details, Atkins said, “All of our dialogue is constructive,” when asked about the atmosphere between the sides and added that the negotiations will be “the entirety of our focus in the coming days.”

Given how long the sides have been at it, however, they should each have a pretty good sense of where they’re willing to go and where the other side stands. 

With time now being of the essence, the conversations should, in theory, be distilled down to here’s the deal, yes or no, although Atkins said there’s still more at play beyond that.

“Just being exhaustive and interrogating our own evaluations, and then exhaustive and interrogating our creativity and innovation,” he explained. “So not wanting any stone to be left unturned. The worst possible scenario is getting to an undesirable outcome and learning after the fact something that we wish we would have known before.”

Fair enough, but the entire negotiation process, in this case and many others, could certainly be made more efficient without all the posturing, bluster and trial-ballooning that so often take place.

Falvey, heading into his ninth season running the Twins, recalled times where he’s made an offer to a free agent in December that ended up getting accepted at the end of January. 

In a bid to eliminate some of that inefficiency and gamesmanship, he’s sought to “skip a couple of steps where, I'm just going to give you the offer, here's what it is.”

“I could offer $5 million lower or $10 million lower on a multi-year, and then we could work our way through it, and that would be Negotiation Strategy 301,” he explained. “But I realize this is just going to take a lot of time, we're going to go back and forth — I'm giving you what I've got.”

In free agency, “there's a risk,” he added, because “you can't control what other teams are doing. So when you make that offer, it's really important that you say on the front end, 'Hey, this is where we are, and I'm skipping steps,' and you need to know after that, you're really not moving. … Sometimes that works and gets you there. It just depends on the relationship you have with the agent or the team.”

Not everyone wants to operate that way, which is why forcing a decision point can help.

Anthopoulos, who typically acts early in off-seasons rather than waiting out the winter, believes “likely one side is going to be influenced by a deadline,” which is why “they drive activity. That's just the reality of life.”

Elias, heading into his seventh season in charge of the Orioles, feels that reality is driven by the “competition and sometimes contention in our business between parties,” however, “sometimes you're working on a deal and there's just a very, very obvious fit on both sides and a similar degree of motivation on both sides. Those deals can happen whenever.”

Otherwise, “people often wait until very close to the deadline thinking that that's when they're going to get the best deal for their side.”

For the Blue Jays and Guerrero, the fit seems very, very obvious between a homegrown cornerstone player with a wide appeal to the fanbase and a team in need of a talent like him to maintain its current competitive window.

The degree of motivation seems to be there equally, too, an indication that the impediment right now is the way the sides are valuing his free-agent years. 

If the Blue Jays are to keep Guerrero from testing free agency next November, perhaps the pressure of a cutoff will drive the sides together.

Speaking about deadlines in general, Atkins said, “The most simple way of thinking about it is just how competitive things are. Is there some emotion that happens because of that pressure? I suppose. But as long as you stick to your beliefs, your evaluations, the work that is done, they really shouldn't matter as much.” 

Maybe, maybe not. The only way to know for sure, in all likelihood, is by waiting until late Monday to find out.