Mets take a flyer on an aging Jose Bautista
For six seasons, Jose Bautista was the best power hitter in baseball. From 2010 through ’15, he slammed 227 home runs for the Toronto Blue Jays. Nobody else in the majors had 200.
That is not the version of Bautista that signed with the New York Mets on Tuesday and rushed to Citi Field to claim a spot in the lineup against the Miami Marlins.
This Bautista is 37 years old and brought with him a .199 average since the start of last season, with 182 strikeouts.
“A lot of people have been striking out a ton over the last year and a half,” general manager Sandy Alderson said, dryly, outside the Mets clubhouse before the game. “I think what we do is, we start with a little bit narrower focus — what he has done well, at least recently, and then build off of that. We’ll just see where it goes.”
Fair point. The Mets have been extremely risk averse for years, and the Bautista move is worth a try, even if based only on a whiff of a sample. In 20 plate appearances against left-handed pitchers for the Atlanta Braves this month, Bautista had two home runs, a single, and four walks. The on-base and slugging percentages add up to .913.
“The thing I focused on, if there was a statistic to focus on, was his OPS against left-handed pitching,” Alderson said. “At a time when he was hitting .150, his OPS against left-handers was still over .900. Given the way we expect he will be used initially, that fits pretty well with what we need.”
Bautista finished last among the 144 major-leaguers who qualified for the batting title last season, hitting a meagre .203 for Toronto.
His OPS against left-handers was just .629, which was actually worse than it was against righthanders (. 688). He did not get a job until April, when Atlanta general manager Alex Anthopoulos, the former Blue Jays GM, signed him to play third base for the Braves.
After playing just 12 games in the minors, Bautista joined the Braves, played 12 more games and went 5 for 35. He took good at-bats and remains in fine shape, but with the Braves playing much better than even they expected — they started play Tuesday in first place in the National League East — they could not wait for Bautista to rediscover his timing.
They believed Johan Camargo could help them more at third base than Bautista, and did not think Bautista could improve from a spot on the bench. Rather than designate Bautista for assignment — and leave him in limbo for up to a week — Anthopoulos released him on Sunday, allowing him to resume his career immediately.
So now Bautista is a Met, chasing the team that just cast him aside. The Mets had the need because of injuries to Yoenis Cespedes (strained right hip flexor) and Juan Lagares, who is probably out for the season after having surgery to repair a torn ligament in his left big toe. Without them, they needed an outfielder who hit right-handed; the original lineup Tuesday included three left-handed outfielders against the Marlins lefty
Caleb Smith.
“We’ve had to go with essentially the same three outfielders, and most of our depth at Triple-A is left-handed,” Alderson said. “We had been looking at the possibility of a right-handed bat in the outfield to spell our other outfielders and give us some offensive potential against a left-handed pitcher.”
Whenever Cespedes returns — he is eligible to come off the disabled list Thursday, but has not yet resumed baseball activities — Alderson said Bautista could still be a useful fifth outfielder, behind Jay Bruce, Cespedes, Michael Conforto and Brandon Nimmo.
Bautista would be the third
Met on the roster well into his mid-30s, joining Adrian Gonzalez, 36, and Jose Reyes, who turns 35 next month. The Mets are not the Nationals, who just called up the 19-year-old Juan Soto, or the Braves, who recently promoted the 20-year-old Ronald Acuna Jr. They are not the Phillies, who have nobody on their active roster over 32 years old.
They are the Mets — old in some places, and flawed. But they are also still over .500, at 24-19 before Tuesday’s game, with two truly elite starters in Jacob deGrom and Noah Syndergaard. They are 18-3 when scoring at least four runs, so taking a chance to improve their offence was an easy and obvious move.
The Mets’ hopes hinge much more on the progress of their other three starters — Steven Matz, Jason Vargas and Zack Wheeler — than on pieces like Bautista. Matz, Vargas and Wheeler entered Tuesday’s game with a 4-9 record and a 6.07 ERA.
Bautista might not be finished as a productive player but, even if he is, he will not hurt the Mets much. If Matz, Vargas and Wheeler are finished, though, the Mets’ playoff chances may be irreparable.