Vladimir Guerrero remains unsigned and wasn’t even linked to many teams all offseason, but his agent told Jon Heyman of CBSSports.com that the 37-year-old plans to play somewhere this season and may turn to Japan if he doesn’t get any MLB offers.
Fernando Cuza indicated to Heyman that Guerrero will wait around for the phone to ring until the end of spring training, but considering he has no business playing the outfield at this point and so few teams aren’t already set with designated hitter options the market for Guerrero seems unlikely to heat up.
He hit .290 last season, which looks good until you consider the 13 homers and .416 slugging percentage in 590 plate appearances. Not only were those by far the worst marks of Guerrero’s career, among the 65 corner outfielders, first basemen, and designated hitters with at least 500 plate appearances last season his .733 OPS ranked 49th.
Guerrero is no longer an elite hitter and knee problems have made it impossible to play him regularly in the outfield, so it makes sense that he hasn’t found a fit. With that said, finishing his career in Japan would be unfortunate for a guy who’s one of the best right-handed hitters of all time.