Vlad’s service time has officially been manipulated

The day that every single Blue Jays fan has been waiting for has finally come. The top prospect in all of baseball, Vladimir Guerrero Jr.’s service time has been manipulated to the point that now he will reach free agency a year later than normal.

If a player spends 172 days on a major league roster it counts as a year of service time, but from this day on Vlad’s maximum will be 171 days earned, therefore not earning a year of service time and pushing his free agency eligibility. The narrative has been beaten to death, but it has been at the front of baseball’s mind this year because of how other young talents are being treated.

Fernando Tatis Jr. getting the call for the Padres and on-track to earn a year of service time certainly put some more pressure than there was previously on the Jays. As well as Eloy Jimenez signing a massive extension that disregards the whole service time headache, as well as his arbitration years.

Today is a day that can somewhat relieve some fans. The whole story that has been talked about to a nauseating degree can now be slowly quieted and will most likely be silenced once Vlad makes his major league debut in the coming weeks (hopefully).

This whole story definitely provides some peak “baseball is broken” storylines, so it doesn’t install hope in how the system is currently run and used.

Luckily, we have some other stories to talk about and it’s how damn happy we can be that Vlad is in this system.

In his first game back in Triple-A after moving up from a Dunedin rehab stint, he absolutely showed why he should be in the major leagues. He went 2-for-4 with a walk, a double, a stolen base, four RBI, and an absolutely demolishing home run that was sent to Mars.

Ignoring the “and a partridge in a pear tree” singalong, having a performance like that has us all salivating over the hopes that he can come and bring some life into the currently-decaying bats in the Jays’ lineup.

He’s just one player, but he is special and we all already know that. Now we just patiently wait for his debut and will go even crazier but in a good way.