Blue Jays star Vladimir Guerrero Jr. has enjoyed some serious personal success at the team’s most prominent AL East rival: the Yankees. In 31 games in the Bronx, Guerrero has hit .289/.344/.579 with 10 home runs.
But even with that Yankee Stadium success, he says that he will never, ever don pinstripes.
In an interview with Dominican media personality Vincent Carmona Arias on the “El Dotol Nastra” YouTube channel, Guerrero made it very clear how little interest he has in playing for New York.
“I like to play in New York, I like to kill the Yankees,” he said during the interview, as translated by MLB insider Héctor Gómez. “I would never sign with the Yankees, not even dead.”
Of course, people’s minds can change, and there will be a fair amount of time before Guerrero may hit free agency, with three more years of arbitration before he could become an unrestricted free agent in 2026, at the age of 27. He made $7.9 million with the Blue Jays on arbitration in ’22.
Guerrero Jr., son of Montreal Expos and Angels legend Vladimir Guerrero, has become a baseball star in his own right since his debut for Toronto in 2019. He has made back-to-back All-Star Games in 2021 and ’22. In ’21, he led the MLB with 48 home runs, and won the AL Hank Aaron Award and the Silver Slugger Award, along with an All-MLB First-Team nod. He won his first career Gold Glove in ’22.
That sounds like the exact kind of slugger that the Yankees would love to sign in a given offseason. At this point, however, fans in the Bronx will have to settle for seeing him as an opponent during a few series every season.
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