The Major League Baseball Players Association is unhappy Vladimir Guerrero Jr. isn’t currently playing for the Blue Jays.
Guerrero, the top ranked prospect in all of baseball according to MLB Pipeline, batted .381 and hit 20 home runs across four minor league levels in 2018. He was also named the MLB Pipeline Hitter of the Year last week.
But, Toronto elected not to call-up the 19-year-old this season, which could push back when he is eligible to enter free agency.
The players association blasted the decision in a statement Thursday.
"The union's position on service-time manipulation is clear, Vladimir Guerrero Jr. and other great young talents around baseball have earned the right to play on the field for a major league team," a union spokesman told Sportsnet. "The decision not to bring him up is a business decision, not a baseball decision. It's bad for the Blue Jays, it's bad for fans, it's bad for players and it's bad for the industry."
Blue Jays president and CEO Mark Shapiro said the choice to not bring Guerrero up to MLB had “nothing to do with business.”
“We’re trying to do everything we humanly can, developmentally, with an accelerated timeframe to ensure that (Guerrero’s) defense, his preparation, his routines, his understanding of his impact as a leader and as a teammate, all the different things that go into it, that they’re taken advantage of and we can build as strong a foundation as possible when he gets here,” Shapiro said in an interview with SiriusXM's MLB Network Radio.”
The Blue Jays enter play Friday in fourth place of the American League East with a 63-77 record.