The Blue Jays officially declined their end of Jose Bautista’s $17MM mutual option for 2018, MLB.com’s Mark Feinsand reports (Twitter link). The Jays informed Bautista of the move back in September, and GM Ross Atkins confirmed during his end-of-season talk with reporters that the option wouldn’t be picked up. Bautista will receive $500K for the option’s buyout.
It seemed as if Bautista and the Blue Jays would part ways after winter, but after Bautista failed to drum up much interest in free agency, he re-signed with Toronto for a one-year, $18.5MM deal (which included the 2018 mutual option and a 2019 vesting option worth $20MM). Any hopes the Jays had of scoring a bargain were dashed after Bautista followed up an injury-plagued down year in 2016 with a sub-replacement level (-0.5 fWAR) 2017 season. Bautista hit just .203/.308/.366 over 686 plate appearances, managing 23 homers but creating 20 percent fewer runs (80 wRC+) than the average batter.
Bautista said he wants to continue his career, though at age 37 and with two declining years now on his record, he may be hard-pressed to even find a Major League contract this winter. He has expressed an openness to playing first base in the past, so that extra bit of versatility could help his case, particularly since his right field defense has been subpar over the last few season. Atkins described the chances of Bautista returning to Toronto on a smaller contract next season as “very unlikely,” which isn’t a surprise since the Jays are looking to get younger and more athletic, plus the DH spot is filled by Kendrys Morales.
An end of an Era for the Blue Jays.
Beginning of the end for Jose Bautista.
The beginning of the end started 2 years ago
Hopefully the jays can acquire some pitching with some of this moola.
The Jays couldn’t hit the last two years, once Donaldson is gone next year the team’s offense will consist of Justin Smoak and nobody else. Their next best hitters after Donaldson and Smoak were a 30 year old Ezequiel Carrera and 34 year old Russell Martin. Both of which were league average hitters per WRC+.
They need to get rid of a now 35 year old Kendrys Morales. He was a sub replacement level DH who posted an OPS under league average at .753. He can’t field, hit league average and his baserunning is so bad he’s basically unplayable.
If Donaldson leaves next yr or gets traded this yr(because anything is possible, no matter what a GM says). They have no offense. Justin Smoak is just that, Smoak and mirrors. His second half was average for him but it gets clouded by an unrealistic first half. And side note Bruce isn’t the answer, get younger.
Yeah, this team is very thin on talent. What you said.
Not surprising because he was horrible (as many predicted) in 2017.
Does he take the steroids with him?
He’s never been caught or tested positive for steroids. You must be thinking of someone else
Troll
he’ll be a giant in 2018.
Just what they need. A -1.7 WAR player to complete the outfield of mediocre.
I wouldn’t be surprised if the Pirates signed him to a 1-2 year deal worth about 8-9 million per year.
I think you’re rigjt
some say the best outfield of all time: An aging Denard span, injured Hunter Pence, and mendoza line hitting Jose Bautista
This comment made my day XD
Don’t retire before the 2018 season Jose, I want you to be in MLB2018 the show and if you retire before March you won’t be in that game.
Yet another example of sentiment over sense. Easily could’ve used his and Morales’s money to resign Edwin E. Fireable offense by the front office.
They offered EE the most money. He turned them down. Sure, they moved on too quickly. But that’s 100% on Eddie and his agent. They misread the market and left everybody looking bad.
Hours after EE declined the initial, opening offer, and months before anyone knew what the 1B market would be, they signed Morales to an insane deal …and that is EE’s fault somehow?
Truth seems to be the Jays were just talking to EE for PR reasons and instead wanted Morales the whole time. That is really the only logical reason Tor would so quickly walk away from Edwin to sign Morales to such a big contract on Nov 18th, a mere 15 days after he even became a FA.
Unbelievable. The only mistake the Jays front office made was misjudging the market for Morales and sluggers in general. Edwin turned down a solid offer from the Jays and the Jays quickly signed Morales. It looked like a decent deal at the time.
Actually EE rejected the 2nd contract offer. The Jays 2nd offer was the largest but they wanted EE’s commitment right away so that they could move on but EE’s agent felt they could use the offer to drive up the price so they rejected the offer. As a result the Jays used the money to sign others. So, yes, it was EE’s fault he didn’t come back. Or more accurately, it was EE’s agent. Don’t know why you think it was only PR reasons Jays were talking to EE when they were trying to talk all season long and EE’s Party was saying they didn’t want to negotiate during the season.
You seem to be confused, as you are describing the offer they made to EE five days after they had already signed Morales.
That is the one they gave a take-it-now-or-leave-it position, while being able to show him at the same time they had already moved on.
They had moved on and filled the hole before they made their best offer, and said they wanted an answer right then and there, before the Offseason had really even gotten underway …in other words, a giant PR stunt to say they tried without trying all that much.
As I said, all indications are they decided to move onto Morales from go, quickly signing him before making a fairer-market decide-now offer to EE they knew he would refuse so early in the process merely to make it look like they actually tried
No confusion. There were 2 offers before they signed Morales. 1 was a low ball offer- roughly around the 14 million dollar range. The 2nd was the big one they offered before they turned to Morales. There’s multiple articles on this as well as a video. Stop thinking it was a PR stunt.
He’s off the juice.
Bautista might receive a modest, incentive-laden offer from one or two teams this winter, but it’s hard to imagine who those teams might be at this point. We know it definitely won’t be TEX, BAL, or TOR.
Japan beckons!
Toronto is the next team heading to rebuild mode.
$150 million,” said Jose. Couldn’t have happened to a better guy. Jays are far better off without Jose’s ‘leadership.’
Jose was a great player for the Jays. I applaud him for what he did in MLB and for the Jays. Not many have a career like he has had especially late in age and doing naturally without steroids. He is a health freak and yoga guy with a diet that maximizes health.
At this point, the Jays are going no where this year again due to the FO strategy of draft and wait, so why not offer Jose a 1 yr deal for a low AAV? It’s not like them signing another player is going to make any difference anyway, there are so many holes in this lineup and pitching staff. It would be nice to have Jose around for one more year.
Bautista gets on base at a good clip still. Misused a lot in 2017. He’d make a good 6-7 hitter somewhere and probably be a lot cheaper this time around.
Oak, Phi, SF, CWS, KC, LAA are some teams that I could see checking in on Bautista. All the years on turf deserve a break, I think the Jays need to let him free. How high would you pay for him jimmertee? I’d offer him $8M max.
For Bautista, he can get on base and I beleive that defensive overuse in 2017 caused problems in his average. He shouldn’t be an everyday defensive player anymore, especially on turf. $6-$8 mill sounds good.
By what metric is he still a decent hitter and on-base guy? He had the 11th worst wOBA and wRC+ in the bigs. His rising strikeout rate spiked to almost 25% while his walk rate continued to fall. His ISO is way down. His hard-hit ball percentage is down.
I love Jose, but he would need to really turn it around next year to have offensive value. He was useless at the plate this season.
I found his approach and his eye were still good at times. The leadoff experiment really hurt him and the team in my opinion. Let him bat 6-7th somewhere for 120games and I think he’d still be above replacement.
When players are hurting or pressing, the stats can be misleading. The stats might be showing us that it’s over for Jose, but he seemed lost in his own head most of all. Might not get the chance, but if he’d take the paycut, there could be a rebound shot still.