The 2017 season was easily Jose Bautista’s worst since his memorable breakout campaign in 2010, but the soon-to-be 37-year-old has no plans to retire, Shi Davidi of Sportsnet reports. If the right fielder does play somewhere next season, it probably won’t be in Toronto, which informed Bautista a couple weeks ago that it will buy him out for $500K in lieu of exercising its half of his $17MM mutual option, according to Davidi. Considering Bautista’s struggles this year, the decision was an obvious one for the Blue Jays, who gave the franchise icon a hero’s sendoff during their final home series of the season from Sept. 22-24.
A Blue Jay since August 2008, when they acquired him from Pittsburgh in a swap for catcher Robinzon Diaz (who had his last of 148 major league plate appearances in 2009), Bautista now stands as one of the greatest players in team history. Across 5,272 PAs with the Jays, Bautista slashed .253/.372/.506 with 288 home runs – second to Carlos Delgado in club history. While Bautista’s regular-season production in Toronto was outstanding, his go-ahead three-run homer and subsequent bat flip in the seventh inning of Game 5 of the 2015 ALDS against the Rangers will go down as his signature moment as a Jay.
Unfortunately for the Jays and Bautista, his offensive output began tailing off significantly the next season. At .234/.366/.452 with 22 long balls in 517 trips to the plate, Bautista logged above-average numbers in 2016, but they paled in comparison to his previous totals.
Thanks to his offensive decline and his inability to offer much value as either a defender or baserunner, he sat on the free agent market into last January until re-signing with the Blue Jays on a deal that guaranteed him $18MM this season and could have been worth another $37MM had he played out the options over the next two years. But Bautista sealed his fate in 2017 by hitting a mere .203/.308/.366 in 686 PAs and finishing with the majors’ seventh-worst fWAR among position players (minus-0.5). Along the way, he registered his worst strikeout and walk rates as a Jay (24.8 percent and 12.2 percent, respectively), his lowest ISO (.164), and his highest chase and swinging-strike rates (25.3 percent and 10.9 percent). Bautista also wasn’t the Statcast darling he had been in prior seasons, recording a paltry .304 expected weighted on-base average (via Baseball Savant) that nearly matched his actual wOBA (.301).
Judging by his stark dropoff in 2017, the upcoming winter figures to be far less lucrative for Bautista than the last one. Nevertheless, it won’t stop him from seeking another contract. Should Bautista land another deal, it probably won’t come from the Jays, though he told Davidi that he’d like to stay where is.
“All I can do is get ready for next season and be ready to contribute to the team that I’m with at that time,” Bautista said. “Right now I’m a Toronto Blue Jay, and that hasn’t changed. I’ve said it all along, this is where I want to be and finish my career. We’ll see what happens in the future. It’s out of my control now.”
love this guy, but it’s time to go. thanks jose !
In these days when business decisions come ahead of sentimentality, his days with the Jays are done. Is difficult to avoid some feelings of empathy as he was never able to cash in on his success as Donaldson is staged to do this winter. But if the Jays are serious about being more than a contender for a Wild Card team next season, the club will have to make some tough and unpopular decisions, especially with the legacy of AA and those burdensome contracts for Tulo and Martin. Could be that the Jays cannot afford an aging Donaldson on top of the commitments already made to Tulo and Martin if the club is serious about getting younger and faster while filling the holes that were so obvious in 2017.
Maybe I don’t get what you mean by “cashing in,” but he made over 100M in his career
Jose was a great BlueJay. He will be difficult to replace. As far as him playing in 2018 goes, his slide over the last 18 months has been significant. He can still pop a few out of the yard and talk a walk, but I think he is having trouble seeing the ball well. That goes with age. Some team will sign him at a big discount because he can still produce RBIs and who knows, take him out of the field and let him DH and his average may jump 40 points.
I’m really not sure where he’d end up, and I can’t see him taking a minor league deal or big pay cut since he believes he can still play (after all, two years ago he was asking for 150 mil over five years!). He’ll probably be limited to the AL, but even there, some teams have flat out said they wouldn’t sign him. It’s going to be interesting to see where he goes, but I wouldn’t be shocked if he’s back with the Jays eventually.
His reputation of being a jerk won’t help him. I wouldn’t be surprised at all if come Spring Training he’s still looking for work. If his inflated ego is as dramatic now as it was last time he was a free agent, I could totally see him walking away rather than taking 1 year $5 mil, if he can even get a major league deal.
Play golf….
U know what. Come on just because one year is a little weak we’ll not a little but u know come on. Cut the guy some slack 10 years with the jays and franchise amazing numbers
This was painful to read…
you should proof read before posting dude…
I thought I was drunk when I was reading it.
How can he play golf when he has trouble seeing the baseball??
Mulligans?
Feel sorry for the GM that gets suckered by that.
I’m planning on playing in 2018 too. But that doesn’t mean any GM is dumb enough to sign me…
I wish I could give this a thumbs up
I believe that he should retire. He had little interest from other teams last offseason and now he’s had a very poor year, there will be even less interest. There is also the fact that most GMs don’t even want him on their team due to the reaction he will bring the fans
You mean dan duquette and Jon Daniels?
Remember when he was asking for something like 140-150million? There’s optimistic and aggressive…and then there’s ludicrous.
Sometimes, the best deals are the ones that a Team doesn’t make.
I’m pretty sure that report was false. The team and Jose both denied that those numbers were tossed around. If he actually did though, then it is ludicrous
Jon Heyman and the Toronto Star reported that their sources said it was false and his asking price was higher than that.
It’s true that this season was his “worst since his memorable breakout campaign in 2010”, but it was actually the worst full season of his entire career by most metrics.
Sometimes players don’t age gracefully. If I were a GM looking at available free agents, I’d bank on youth and/or positional flexibility over a 37 year-old washed up slugger.
Jose has had a great career. But this feels like the end of the road. And it’s better to walk away on your own terms than to cling to the scraps of what you once were.
If the Angels cant keep Upton, this smells like Arte would be all over Bautista.
If Upton opts out, I wouldn’t waste the money to sign Bautista. I would try to sign lorenzo cain , or jd martinez , then moustakus or nunez for third. then add lance lynn
Oh Upton is most definitely opting out…
And who would sign him? Lol
The Giants
Why? He is washed. Too much money on the books for another old player
that’s the last thing the giants need, an aging outfielder.
Jermaine Dye, Jim Thome, and Ryan Howard wanted to keep playing too, and aside from Howard’s ceremonial minor-league contract this year (to sign a few autographs in Albuquerque), they didn’t get what they want, and with all of the hatred and negativity going on in the world, Bautista needs to be grateful that he made over $100 million in his career and just retire gracefully.
Three future Hall of Famers, Albert Pujols, Beltran, and Miguel Cabrera, had negative WAR this year in full seasons. Albert was -2.0.
Not sure what you mean by your post regarding negative WAR.
Albert and Miguel are signed to monstrously ridiculous contracts in both dollars and time. Most likely the Angels and Tigers will be stuck with them for the duration. Beltran probably has hit the end of the road with Houston and doubt that anyone else will sacrifice youth for a one dimensional offensive player who has seen his better days.
Jose may want to play but as many posts have said above, he may find employment impossible on a multi year deal and highly unlikely on a 1 year deal with incentives for an offensive ballplayer who has seen his better days.
I agree about Albert’s contract. My point was that there are many players once considered among the top-tier who slumped horribly this year. The harder question for FO’s are which ones are demonstrating their (present) true talent, and which just had really bad years or injuries. I think Cabrera is better than 2017. Beltran is likely done. Albert could stabilize a bit higher (replacement value) if they would platoon him more. As for others, players like CarGo and Hanley might recover somewhat, but Bautista would likely need special circumstances.
In contrast to their more recent deals, the Pirates did pretty well. At least that time they received a player in return.
I hope Texas signs him just so Rangers fans can boo him unmercifully every single day.
Hire him to replace Jacoby as hitting coach.
I don’t want Bautista back as an everyday player, but I wouldn’t mind him as a utility guy. He could take Barney’s place on the roster and potentially spell guys at 1B, 3B, LF, and RF.
and play none of those positions well.
Upton is history … who wants to play for a team who won’t even make a commitment to Trout to put up a winning team on the field? Bad contracts, bad signings, wrong players, bad pitching and bullpen … If Trout had an opt-put clause … he would have been history long ago … I just don’t see Upton and Trout (when his contract is up) coming back ….
If Texas gets Bautista … looks for the Bautista-Odor rematch bout…. in a daily basis…
White Sox should take a chance on him as a Dh and if he contribute trade him in the deadline
Has minor league deal with invite to spring training written all over.
Nah he’ll get a minor league deal somewhere. He’s had one bad year, someone going to take a cheap chance on him
he’s had a couple of bad years now
Some guys need to learn when to hang it up on their own terms. It would be worth attempting a comeback if he had been hurt last year, possibly if it was just a single instance of a down year, or maybe even if he still had a year or two left on his contract, but he’s a healthy free agent who just doesn’t have it anymore. Give it up, Jose.
Bautista needs to go to the House , the Guy is an over rated Juicer who never got caught !
I remember during his first couple of elite years he was tested more than any other MLB player, which in itself is biased, and always came back clean. Morons everywhere started to suspect untraceable Canadian steroids, are you one of those morons William?
Teams lining up to increase their payroll and decrease their win total.
Japan!
Bautista is simply the most recent Jays cornerstone to leave the franchise with nothing coming back in return. Almost impossible to have a rational discussion with a Jays fan about Jose the Great. Jays are much better off without Bautista, on and off the field, good choice moving on.
I may be in the minority here but I think it’s pretty lame Toronto didn’t pick up his option. They are going nowhere next year anyway they might as well take care of their icon. In my mind he’s the best blue jay of all time and deserves respect.
Bautista’s best hope this winter will be to land a modest one-year deal with a team who loses out on the sweepstakes for all the much better OF free agents. That team might end up being SEA.