Report: No. 1 Prospect Vladimir Guerrero Jr. Promoted to Blue Jays Triple-A Team

Baseball's No. 1 prospect is one step closer to the majors.

Toronto Blue Jays minor leaguer Vladimir Guerrero Jr. was promoted to Triple-A on Wednesday, according to Yahoo Canada Sports' Andrew Zuber. He went 4-for-15 with a double and a walk in four appearances at High-A to start the season. 

Guerrero has put himself in position to potentially reach the big leagues this year after hitting .381/.437/.636 with 20 home runs, 29 doubles and 78 RBI in 95 games between four minor league levels last season.

Despite those gaudy numbers, the Blue Jays opted not to call Guerrero up last year when rosters expanded in September. That decision drew the ire of the Major League Baseball Players Association, per Sportsnet's Shi Davidi:

"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. The decision to 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 Mark Shapiro went on SiriusXM's MLB Network Radio and denied that the club was keeping the highly touted prospect out of the majors to prevent his service-time clock from starting:

Guerrero figured to have a chance to compete for a spot on Toronto's Opening Day roster this spring. However, general manager Ross Atkins made it known that the team expected to start the season with veteran Brandon Drury at third, not the 20-year-old phenom.

Any chance Guerrero had of starting the year with the big league club went out the window when he suffered an oblique injury in early March and missed the rest of spring training.

Nearly two weeks into the 2019 season, Toronto is approaching a point in the MLB calendar when it will be able to call Guerrero up without losing a year of club control. The Blue Jays are 4-8 on the season, and Drury is hitting .163/.200/.233 with zero home runs and zero RBI in 11 appearances.