SPRING TRAINING
‘There’s no negotiation. I told them what I wanted. They either meet it or it is what it is.’
JOSE BAUTISTA, whose deal expires after this season, says he has given the Blue Jays his contract demands and the ball is now in their court. Neither Bautista nor the team would comment on what he might be seeking. Richard Griffin,
DUNEDIN— Early in Jose Bautista’s personal state of the franchise address to the media, he dropped his blockbuster — there will be no negotiations with the Blue Jays for a contract extension this spring.
Instead, he has given them his hard demands in terms of years and dollars. The team can accept, and he would sign tomorrow. Forever the smartest man in the room, Bautista has not precluded the ballclub accepting this same demand during the season, or even into October. This is brilliant strategy by Bautista and agent Jay Alou. Mr. Shapiro, the ball is in your court. “I am not willing to negotiate, even right now,” Bautista said, when asked if he would have a similar opening day cutoff as Edwin Encarnacion. “I don’t think there should be any negotiation. I think I’ve proved myself and the question (of demand) has been asked and what it would take and I’ve given them an answer. So it is what it is. I’m not going to sit here and try and bargain for a couple of dollars.”
The meeting took place in Toronto during NBA all-star weekend festivities, with Bautista and his agent in a room with Blue Jays president Mark Shapiro and GM Ross Atkins. He knew the meeting was to be about his contract, so Bautista came prepared. He stood up, gave them his demand, dropped the mic, over.
“If someone is going to ask me ‘What would it take?’ I didn’t want to waste any time,” Bautista explained. “I think it should be natural, organic, quick and easy. It shouldn’t be pull and tug about a few dollars here and there. I didn’t want to waste their time or their effort. So they can start planning ahead, and if it’s not going to happen, they have plenty of time to do so. There’s no negotiation. I told them what I wanted. They either meet it or it is what it is.”
Bautista is treating this as a business proposition. He believes he has played the past five seasons at a home-team discount and now is dealing from a position of market value. He had signed with the Jays for five years, $65 million (U.S.) plus this season’s team-friendly option of $14 million.
“I have present-day value,” Bautista explained of his self-pricing guideline. “My answer when they asked me what the number would be is solely taking that (present-day value) into consideration. I’m not trying to be pessimistic. I’m positive and I think they know and realize the things that I say and agree with me. It’s just a matter of — are they willing to go there?”
There seemed just a slight undercurrent of bitterness and regret about his last contract. It sounded like he had even expected former GM Alex Anthopoulos to replace his option season in 2016 with an extension, just because he had been playing above his contract and never complained.
“There’s no negotiation. I told them what I wanted. They either meet it or it is what it is.” JAYS’ JOSE BAUTISTA ON HIS CONTRACT DEMAND
“I think I maximized on a great season back then,” Bautista said of his 54-homer effort in 2010. “I just happened to outplay the contract to an extreme, even though I had to deal with a few injuries and miss a significant chunk of games. That sort of thing happens and I never once complained about it and I haven’t still. All I’m saying is the facts are facts. I did outplay that contract and it did come out to be the team got a huge hometown discount. Not by design. They took a gamble. That was a big risk. Alex took a lot of heat for that and I just came through. I’m not going to apologize for that.” When Jays management was asked on Monday to comment on the years and dollars Bautista might have demanded, the club refused, suggesting it was fair to the player and the process. But Bautista, who clearly came to the meeting in Toronto well-prepared, talked about the effect the Jays’ season — capped by his dramatic Game 5 home run against the Rangers — had on Rogers’ share value.
“It’s no secret that in a publicly traded company, everyone can track their performance fairly easy,” Bautista said, suspicious of the Jays’ balance sheet. “Stock prices are monitored very closely by the whole financial world. I think there’s a direct correlation with the success of their earnings per share after we started experiencing success. Are they going to put it out in the media and say ‘Because of the Jays we made all this money?’ No, but you can read between the lines.
“Nobody has a way to measure how much money the team makes when we win because of the way we’re structured (tangled within a communications giant). It’s really unfair to talk about revenue and payroll and all of that. What I’ve done and what my contributions have been to this organization are pretty well documented. I don’t have to argue about one or two more home runs than so-and-so. “I’m not going to waste my time.” If one imagines Bautista’s request for the next five seasons (he is signed for 2016) at about $120 million, that would make him the highest-paid Blue Jay in annual average value, ahead of Troy Tulowitzki and Russell Martin.
And Bautista is right — off his past performance and impact, he deserves to be the top earner.
“I have present-day value,” he said. “Some of the decision-making of a contract I presented has to come from ownership. How much? I don’t know. I don’t really know how long (Shapiro and Atkins’) rope really is to make exclusive decisions.”
Much will be gleaned regarding the future direction of the Jays from judging how they respond to Bautista’s demands.
Encarnacion, plus Tulowitzki, Martin and potential free agents on the outside will be paying attention to how the Jays handle Bautista and the team’s perceived direction.