Vladimir Guerrero Jr. taking shot at Yankees is as exhausting as it gets

What is it that the Toronto Blue Jays and Vladimir Guerrero Jr. don’t understand? The New York Yankees won the AL East on their soil in 2022. They eliminated Toronto from the playoffs in 2021. New York is 35-32 against the Blue Jays since Vladdy made his MLB debut in 2019.

But the brashness, cringey confidence and trash talk still ooze out of the young slugger … which is weird because he and the Jays have accomplished nothing over the last four seasons. As a matter of fact, Vladdy came in SIXTH in the AL Rookie of the Year voting back in 2019 behind Yordan Alvarez, John Means, Brandon Lowe, Eloy Jimenez, Cavan Biggio (his own teammate!) and Luis Arraez. Individually, he’s hardly done anything of note.

Sure, the Yankees haven’t accomplished much for their standards, either. New York fans will be the first ones to tell you that as they eviscerate every single decision both general manager Brian Cashman and manager Aaron Boone make.

But at some point we have to draw the line. Yankees fans have no problem taking an L when it’s deserved, but there’s no chance Vladdy and the Jays can continue getting away with this.

This franchise has made the playoffs four times since 1994. They’ve lost in the Wild Card round their last two appearances. They also have one division title over that span. So why does Guerrero Jr. feel the need to stay stuff like this, unprovoked?

Blue Jays star Vladimir Guerrero Jr. talked trash on the Yankees unprompted

There’s a world in which fans would love to not pay any attention to this, but it’s yet another exhausting example of someone jabbing the Yankees simply because they’re the Yankees. There’s no other reason or explanation for it. And regardless of context, other fanbases will get a kick out of it.

It’s even more farcical because of what happened earlier this season when Guerrero Jr. celebrated a series-opening walk-off single on Sept. 26 as if it were a season-altering moment. That win still had the Jays 7.5 games back of the Bombers. Not only that, but the Yankees just needed one (1) win against Toronto to clinch the division. There were two games left in the series. But Guerrero was exclaiming that the Rogers Centre was “his house” after the first night as if he wasn’t going to allow a single loss to occur under his watch. The Yankees won the next two games, including the finale in which they trotted out a skeleton crew of a lineup because everyone was hungover from the previous night of celebrating. Aaron Judge tied the AL home run record in that one, too.

Whether Guerrero would ever play for the Yankees or not is his own opinion, and that’s fine. It’s not like that was ever going to be a reality, anyway. But the 23-year-old claiming the Yankees are afraid to play the Jays and then downplaying the New York-Boston rivalry, which has more storylines in one single year than the Yankees-Jays “rivalry” does since Toronto’s inception as a franchise in 1977? That’s simply delusion.

Guerrero has had his moments against the Yanks, but until they start to mean something, all of this will be hollow, try-hard trash talk that elicits no other reaction than one shaking his or her head before scrolling further down the timeline.

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