Vladimir Guerrero Jr. and the Blue Jays negotiated on and off over the past few years and finally agreed to a 14-year $500 million contract extension. He passed his physical and the deal has been officially announced to the baseball world.

Now what?

Now Guerrero needs to hit like he is capable of doing. He certainly hasn’t set the world on fire so far this season, finally hitting his first home run on Wednesday in a 3-1 win over the Atlanta Braves.

Guerrero isn’t the first player to struggle while negotiating a contract during the season. It’s always hard to quantify the cause and effect of in-season negotiations, but generally they have a negative impact on players. That’s the reason players and teams prefer not to negotiate during the season. The player can try too hard to justify the dollars he wants, while the team may become more rigid in its negotiating stance if the player struggles.

The Jays and Guerrero got their deal done early enough that it shouldn’t have a long-term impact on this season. But that is really up to Guerrero. He needs to relax and understand that he doesn’t have to overtry to prove he’s worthy of the megadeal he signed.

His numbers so far are pretty consistent with his career statistics and underlying metrics. Guerrero is hitting the ball hard and barreling it at a very high rate. He also hits a lot of balls hard on the ground because of his well-documented low launch angle. I believe the home run production will start to flow now that he has the first one out of the way.

The more baserunners that get on in front of Guerrero, the more likely the power numbers will grow. Pitchers will have to try to get him out by throwing the ball over the plate instead of getting him to expand out of the zone. That means that the better Bo Bichette performs in the leadoff spot and Alan Roden in the ninth spot in the lineup, the more good pitches Guerrero will get.

Sure, Anthony Santander hitting behind Guerrero will help some, but I firmly........

© TSN