Blue Jays’ Bassitt dishes on Vladimir Guerrero Jr.’s future

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The Toronto Blue Jays hopefully share Chris Bassitt’s optimism on star slugger Vladimir Guerrero Jr.’s future with team.

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The Jays starting pitcher said that while he doesn’t have any inside information, he doesn’t think that Vladdy wants to leave the only MLB team he has played for.

“I don’t know this, I don’t want to speak for him on this, I think Vladdy wants to be a Blue Jay for the rest of his career,” Bassitt said in an interview with Chris Rose Sports that was posted on Monday. “I don’t think he wants to leave, so I don’t think it’s like a super rush to get an extension done.

“They, obviously, didn’t trade him because they don’t ever see him or want him to be in another uniform. They’re OK to go to arbitration to know how much he’s going to make next year but I think both sides want to be together.

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“I don’t think there’s a bad relationship, I don’t think it’s a negative that he doesn’t have an extension yet. Maybe it’s like, both sides want to be together, and Vlad is like, ‘Listen, I’m going to hold off until closer to, say, free agency because I don’t know what a real fair value for me is right now.’”

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However, Bassitt does believe that there’s one change of scenery that can benefit Guerrero: A shift across the diamond.

“The craziest part to me is that if I was Vladdy and I was going to a free-agency year, I’d be, like, ‘Listen, you’re moving me to third base because I’m going to make a lot more money at third base than at first base,’ and the reality is that he is pretty damn good at third base.

“I thought moving Vladdy from first to third was going to be an absolute crap show. There’s no way Vladdy can play third then we moved him over to third and I’m like, ‘Damn, you actually can play third. Like you played third, obviously, in the past but like I thought that was a long time ago,’ he’s pretty damn good at third.

“I would throw him over there 75% of the time. I wouldn’t even put him at first base.”

During the interview, Bassitt also opened up about what he felt led to the team’s struggles this season: The ultimately doomed pursuit of superstar Shohei Ohtani.

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The Blue Jays starting pitcher said that going after the superstar free agent this past winter put the team in a difficult position before the season even started.

“The one thing I will say about the Blue Jays for this year, we put $700 million into Shohei Ohtani’s basket and didn’t get him,” Bassitt said. “That was the reality and I think we really didn’t have a pivot to, like, another elite player.

“In today’s baseball, you need three or four superstars. Look at the really good teams. They are not doing it with one superstar, they’re legit doing it with three or four superstars. That’s just the nature of this game now, the way that pitching is, the way that bullpens are set up.

“If you have one or two hitters in your lineup, you literally cannot be good, no matter how good the player is. I don’t think it’s possible.”

Bassitt also declined to elaborate on some other problems with the club, saying that he didn’t feel they were “fixable.”

“I think we do a lot of things right here, but, like, I don’t want to identify the problems because some of the problems I don’t think are fixable,” he said.

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