{"id":653343,"date":"2026-03-30T22:37:14","date_gmt":"2026-03-30T22:37:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/653343\/"},"modified":"2026-03-30T22:37:14","modified_gmt":"2026-03-30T22:37:14","slug":"shapiro-guerrero-jr-capable-of-being-greatest-position-player-in-blue-jays-history","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/653343\/","title":{"rendered":"Shapiro: Guerrero Jr. capable of being ‘greatest position player’ in Blue Jays history"},"content":{"rendered":"

Coming off a 2025 season that saw Vladimir Guerrero Jr.<\/a> sign long-term before authoring one of the great playoff runs in franchise history, Toronto Blue Jays<\/a> president and CEO Mark Shapiro has set a high bar for the 27-year-old first baseman.<\/p>\n

While appearing on the Blair & Barker radio show Monday on Sportsnet 590 The Fan, Shapiro was asked what the ceiling may be for Guerrero as he embarks on his eighth big-league season.<\/p>\n

“His upside, we saw in the post-season last year, (so) I guess I’d say his upside is doing that over an entire season,” Shapiro said. “Maintaining that level of play is pretty tough. That would almost be historic for someone to do, but we’ve seen that one year of his career.<\/p>\n

“I think he’s capable \u2014 regardless of whether he does that, if he stays healthy \u2014 he’ll be the greatest position player in Blue Jay history and an all-time great player period.”<\/p>\n

During Toronto’s run to the 2025 Fall Classic, Guerrero’s 1.289 OPS became the ninth-highest mark from a hitter who logged at least 40 plate appearances in a single post-season.<\/p>\n

It followed a regular season in which he slashed .292\/.381\/.467 with 23 home runs and 84 RBIs.<\/p>\n

Guerrero is off to a strong start in 2026 after picking up four hits and walking four times in Toronto’s three-game sweep of the Athletics.<\/p>\n

The five-time all-star entered the 2026 season in a much different position than he did a year ago. With Guerrero set to enter free agency after 2025, the two sides weren’t able to reach agreement on a deal by Opening Day, leaving a sense of uncertainty around Toronto’s star first baseman.<\/p>\n

But those concerns were put to bed in early April, when the Blue Jays announced a 14-year, $500-million extension for Guerrero.<\/p>\n

And while he delivered for Toronto in October, Shapiro expects Guerrero to be a mainstay in the city, thanks to more than his skills at the plate.<\/p>\n

“The thing that makes him special is his joy that he brings in playing the game and his ability to sustain that in even the most tense moments,” Shapiro said Monday. “(He) can just flash that smile that’s a special smile, and that can impact everybody around him… it can impact fans, and it’s rare a player has the ability to do that.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Coming off a 2025 season that saw Vladimir Guerrero Jr. sign long-term before authoring one of the great…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":653344,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[2378],"tags":[5,377,2554,4,282,70,2553],"class_list":{"0":"post-653343","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-toronto-blue-jays","8":"tag-baseball","9":"tag-blue-jays","10":"tag-bluejays","11":"tag-mlb","12":"tag-toronto","13":"tag-toronto-blue-jays","14":"tag-torontobluejays"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@mlb\/116320524348404949","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/653343","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=653343"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/653343\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/653344"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=653343"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=653343"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=653343"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}