Jose Bautista Is Staying With The Blue Jays On A One-Year Deal With Two Option Years
FINALLY, after all that, Jose Bautista ends up staying in Toronto with the Blue Jays.
I mean, this made the most sense, right? For both sides. Last week, team president Mark Shapiro hinted heavily at a reunion when he said that the Blue Jays needed a corner outfielder, and that Bautista was the most talented one remaining on the free agent market. Four days later, they have an agreement.
All of the details aren’t yet known, but what we do know is that he will, in fact, make more money on the first year of this deal than he would’ve had he accepted Toronto’s qualifying offer. The qualifying offer guarantees you $17.2 million on a one-year deal, and I had thought that Bautista’s market had sunk so low that he wouldn’t even be able to hit that figure on a one-year deal.
If Toronto wanted to play hardball, I bet they could’ve retained his services on a one-year deal that was less than $17.2 million (options included), but I don’t think that would’ve been very beneficial to have a disgruntled Bautista in that Blue Jays clubhouse. If anything, going north of that $17.2 million figure is a way of saying, “Thanks for being an absolute monster over the last seven years, all while making nowhere close to what you should’ve been making.”
Obviously he would’ve preferred having a guaranteed three-year deal instead of the two option years, but I’m actually glad he got more than just a one-year deal. Yeah, he’s an asshole, but he’s gotten screwed as far as the MLB pay scale goes based on his production in Toronto. I’m sure he’s not happy about the lack of guaranteed years, but when you think about it, his entire major league career has been about proving himself. He’s the definition of a chip on the shoulder kind of player, so I’m sure he’s going to welcome the challenge of having to go out there and prove himself once again in order to have his options picked up.
But what this all comes down to is that, while Bautista has certainly been one of the game’s premiere power hitters over the last seven years, he’s more valuable to Toronto than he would be to any other organization in the league. In Cleveland, he’s just another power bat. Same thing if he went to Baltimore, Houston, Toronto, Texas or Boston. In Toronto, he’s a legend. He’s an icon. Entering his age-36 season in 2017, he was never going to achieve that status anywhere else.
And, to be quite honest, I think it’s stating the obvious to say that the Blue Jays retained the wrong guy in regards to Bautista or Edwin Encarnacion. But now that Encarnacion is in Cleveland, from a baseball standpoint and a fan loyalty standpoint, they could not afford to lose both. So, good on them for realizing that and bringing Bautista back to where he belongs.
Yeah, I shit on Blue Jays fans and we have fun busting each other’s balls on Twitter, but they’re passionate as hell up there in Canada for their baseball team, and they’ve been waiting a long time to have something to get excited about. Bautista is a huge reason for that excitement, and as much as it may appear that I hate Blue Jays fans, I enjoy the rivalry that the baseball renaissance in Toronto has created, and Bautista in a Blue Jays uniform keeps that rolling.
