Vladimir Guerrero Jr's comments on free agency pretty much eliminated Tigers

The Detroit Tigers believe they have their first baseman in Colt Keith, but another star may soon become available on the trade market that could pique their interest.

The Toronto Blue Jays and star slugger Vladimir Guerrero Jr. failed to reach an agreement on a contract extension before the start of spring training, leading to renewed speculation that they might explore trading him before he leaves in free agency next offseason.

Based on their recent history of epic free agency fails (Juan Soto, Shohei Ohtani and Roki Sasaki, to name a few), it would be understandable if they chose the trade route with Guerrero later down the road so they could at least get something in return for him.

Of course, that'll likely depend on how the Jays perform by the 2025 trade deadline. They'd be foolish to sell if they were in contention, especially with how wide open the AL is.

Could the Tigers be a potential trade partner for the Blue Jays if this were the case? A trade for Guerrero would require a massive haul in return, and Detroit has the assets to make a reasonable offer. Trading for him wouldn't be a problem for the Tigers, though; the problem wouldn't arise until it's time to extend him beyond 2025.

Vladimir Guerrero Jr's comments on free agency pretty much just took Tigers out of the running

Guerrero avoided arbitration with the Blue Jays and agreed on a $28.5 million salary for this season, after which he is set to become a free agent. He gave Toronto a deadline of Feb. 18 to get an extension done, so as not to burden himself or his teammates with any outside chatter about negotiations during spring training, and the club failed to meet that deadline – but not for lack of effort, per Blue Jays general manager Ross Atkins.

"I am confident that we exhausted the communication, the ideas, the thoughts and communicated every dollar," Atkins said Tuesday (via Jeff Passan of ESPN). "The offers that we made for Vlad would've been record-setting and would've made him one of the highest-paid players in the game."

Well, that alone should be enough to convince us that the Tigers are out of the running. This is not a team that's in the business of making "record-setting" offers. And what would the sense be in trading an absolute haul only for a few months of a star player unless you were beyond confident about making a World Series run?

Without a deal in place, Guerrero says he plans to cut off all contract talks during the season. However, he also said that he "won't close the door" on a "realistic" offer from the Blue Jays.

"Listen, I want to be here. I want to be a Blue Jay for the rest of my career," Guerrero said (via Passan). "But it's free agency. It's business. So I'm going to have to listen to 29 more teams and they're going to have to compete for that."

And there it is – the final nail in the Tigers' coffin. If Guerrero does become a free agent, they won't be able to compete with other deep-pocketed, large-market teams throwing money at him to enlist his services. If Toronto – where Guerrero supposedly wants to play the rest of his career – couldn't make an enticing enough offer, there's no reason to believe that the Tigers could.

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