Blue Jays brain trust will rue treatment of beloved Double-E
The roar of the crowd, like rolling thunder, felt like it might go on forever. Remember? A fastball that cracked off the bat of Edwin Encarnacion, leaving a vapour trail as it departed orbit — a three-run walk-off jack in the wildcard game against Baltimore. Eighty-one days ago.
Or a gorgeous August afternoon at the yard a year earlier, Encarnacion going long once-twice-thrice off a trio of Detroit pitchers: nine RBIs and E.E. befuddled by the hundreds of hats that cascaded on to the field.
Or May 2014, a home-run binge — 16, accounting for fully half of his 32 hits that month.
Or any of the monster-mashes, lesser variations of the jaw-dropping 488-footer that slammed off the third deck facing in 2012.
Or, poignantly, Encarnacion sitting alone in the home dugout after the final regular-season game this past Sept. 29, staring out at the field, wondering if he’d played his last at the Rogers Centre as a Blue Jay.
Cherish those memories, Toronto. They’re all you have left of Double-E. Nothing is forever, certainly not in sports. But it shouldn’t be, now, gone-baby-gone for Encarnacion and his sweet smile and his silly home-run parrot trot.
The illustrious Jay, who wanted very much to stay a Jay, has taken his bats, balls and bazookas to Cleveland, the unforeseen disembarkation point of a free-agent odyssey that actually began in spring training when the club offered an insulting two-year contract extension. Encarnacion, unsurprisingly, told the team to stuff it.
He had one career shot at exploiting the spoils of free agency. At that point, the club had exclusive bargaining rights with Encarnacion. They could have sewn up his future fealty. But the brain trust of Mark Shapiro and Ross Atkins, cleaving to the false idol of analytics, tried a gambit so disrespectful to a proud man that Encarnacion shut down any further discussion for the rest of the year. You can’t blame an agent who ultimately misread the market for misjudgments back in March.
The Jays were still talking to Encarnacion — to his agent, at least, because there was no direct communication with their all-star after the signing of presumptive replacement Kendrys Morales on Nov. 18 — on Thursday, mere hours before news broke that the DH/first baseman was Indians-bound.
Sources have told the Star that the Jays had budged (bulged) “creatively” past the $80 million over four years they offered at the end of the season — to $80 million guaranteed plus vested (meeting certain performance incentive thresholds) or options that maxed out at $100 million. That deal was still on the table after Toronto inked Morales, in retrospect a too-hasty Plan B which so displeased Encarnacion that he stopped taking Atkins’ calls. Scooping middling Steve Pearce off the market then created a crowd at first base, though the Jays would have peddled Justin Smoak, even if it meant eating up to $2 million on the contract extension he signed in July. And, though Encarnacion was starting to get twitchy as suitors dwindled, agent Paul Kinzer pur- portedly sat stubbornly on their $125-million demand.
So explain, please, how the slugger winds up a forsaken ex-Jay, accepting three years at $20 million per from the Indians, with an option for 2020 and guaranteed $5-million buyout?
What a cock-up. Nice Christmas stocking stuffer for the Indians. A punch in the nose for Jays fans.
They will not take it lightly, watching this team shrink in post-season potential before their eyes, what was once a star-studded roster dulled in glitter glitz with the departure of Encarnacion and quite likely Jose Bautista, too. Re-signing both was never contemplated, but the former is the greater subtraction.
At every juncture of this benighted saga, it seems, both the Blue Jays and the agent managed to do exactly the wrong thing, dimming the prospects that Encarnacion would return to the organization where he became an uber-star.
Oh, there’s lots of blame to go around and the tale is being spun by duelling factions, the Jays adept at ameliorating the Encarnacion disaster — because that’s what it is — via the vast network of media acolytes whose paycheques are signed by Rogers, versus the “Who Me?” disingenuousness of Kinzer, mounting his counterattack.
There’s no doubt about E-Kinzer, his tactical error. But this wrenching is foremost down to the president and his novice general manager, for mismanaging their budget commitments and essentially misunderstanding Encarnacion, the man. As arrivistes, as carpetbaggers from Cleveland, they failed to grasp the emotional connection between the player and the city, or use it to their advantage.
Encarnacion was beloved in Toronto. There were no personality warts, no ego; only a quiet, commanding presence in the clubhouse and a steadfast source of electrifying offence on the field. He even delivered a decent first base. And, sentiment aside, you don’t just replace 239 homers and 679 RBIs.
All that currency built up with fans over the last two years — only a smidge of which can be credited to the new front-office regime in their 2016 debut — has been forfeited in this blundering off-season. Toronto may have topped American League attendance, but in this city — as those who’ve been around for a while can attest — baseball love is a fickle thing. While rival clubs have boosted their marquee bona fides, the Jays appear worrisomely calibrated towards mediocrity redux.
Unforgivable, what Shapiro & Atkins have wrought, and unforgiven it will be.
But at least three games — May 8 to 10 — will doubtless be sellouts. That’s when Encarnacion comes “home” an Indian.
Encarnacion was a quiet, commanding presence in the clubhouse and a steadfast source of electrifying offence on the field