A MARRIAGE OF CONVENIENCE
Bautista and the Jays had other plans, but they’re still a good fit for each other
Jose Bautista wanted more money and more term. The Toronto Blue Jays wanted the compensatory draft pick that would come with another team signing its longtime star.
In the end, no one gets what they went looking for when the off-season began. Instead, they get each other.
If there’s one thing we’ve learned this winter, it’s that the Blue Jays were perfectly comfortable moving on from both Edwin Encarnacion and Bautista, two former franchise cornerstones. If there’s one thing we still haven’t figured out, it’s what, exactly, they’ve moved toward.
There were attempts, sure, but they haven’t become younger or more athletic or even more versatile. There’s always multiple paths an off-season can take, but this one has been unpredictably odd from a Blue Jays point of view.
The framework of Bautista’s slow-moving pact was reported as of Tuesday to be for one year at US$18 million, with a mutual option for a second year and a vesting option for a third. Considering mutual options are rarely picked up, it looks like a 10-month contract that will have Bautista back on the market again in November, but the details are still reportedly being finalized.
One area where Bautista won this winter is at least he did marginally better than the US$17.2million qualifying offer the Jays extended in the fall, and he gets to return to a place where he’s comfortable.
The Jays could win big in the short term if they’re getting a healthy and motivated Bautista, with relatively little commitment other than the money budgeted for 2017 that they tried to spend elsewhere, but couldn’t.
Poor timing led to Encarnacion signing a deal with the Cleveland Indians instead of Toronto. Good timing led Bautista back.
If Encarnacion’s numbers promised the Jays’ front office and the fan base a nice, comfortable floor — rock-solid production and middle-of-the-order power without any noteworthy injury issues at the age of 34 — Bautista’s allure is that of upside, even though he’s 36.
Since the Jays can’t get a compensatory pick out of Bautista now — the new CBA says a player can no longer receive a qualifying offer more than once — that short-term upside is what Toronto general manager Ross Atkins and president Mark Shapiro are doubling down on.
Bautista’s decidedly so-so 2016 was hampered by injury, but he’s still an above-average bat. There are glimmers of hope that he can improve on his 2016 slash line of .234/.366/.452, given that his 16.8 per cent walk rate was third in the major leagues behind Mike Trout and Bryce Harper. And while Bautista’s weighted runs created plus stat of 122 was off his career average of 132 — 100 is the league-average baseline — that number still put him in the company of stars such as Mark Trumbo (123), Evan Longoria (123), Starling Marte (122) and Jose Abreu (118).
Even though he swung and missed more often last season, there are signs that point to a rebound at the plate, which is important because his outfield defence is already a serious problem and it’s not going to improve.
But at this point, the Jays and Bautista not only have each other, but they need each other, too. There’s no arguing the fact the Jays were desperate for an outfielder with some thump and Bautista was by far the most tantalizing option left in a free-agent market that was picked over and not very good to begin with. Bautista, on the other hand, needed a comfortable landing spot and the chance to rebuild his brand with an eye on re-entering the free-agent market next winter in search of one last payday.
If Bautista makes 600 plate appearances, the Jays, despite an off-season spent striking out on the majority of the free agents they went after, could again find themselves in the wild card hunt, which is about all you can ask for with the way the American League looks on paper.
There are certainly many glass-half-empty ways to look at it, starting with the theory that Bautista’s injury-plagued 2016 campaign was the start of an inevitable age-related decline. It’s a definite possibility, and one the Jays seemed to be leaning toward throughout an off-season that failed to produce many meaningful negotiations with Bautista’s camp until recently.
If a winter of listening to crickets on the free-agent market and chirps from front-office types about his villainous personality don’t point Bautista toward being a warmer, more productive player in 2017, nothing will.
There was a time not so long ago that Bautista’s return would have been celebrated in Toronto. These days, it seems to worry as many people as it excites — maybe the Jays’ front office included.