Written by Ken Rosenthal at FoxSports.com
Jose Bautista said he never asked for $150 million, and he isn’t getting $150 million. In fact, he will get just over 12 percent of that amount, and he’s fortunate the Blue Jays will pay him even that much.
Bautista was in a difficult spot. At age 36. With declining defensive skills. In a market flooded with right-handed sluggers — and a draft pick attached to him after he rejected the Jays’ qualifying offer.
This is the last offseason a team can lose a first-round selection for signing a qualified free agent. The rules will change under the new collective-bargaining agreement — a change that actually might benefit Bautista, in the likely event that he again hits the open market next winter.
Bautista’s one-year, $18.5 million deal, pending a physical, includes two mutual options that could increase the total value to $60 million over three years, according to published reports. But let’s not kid ourselves about the structure.
Rarely is a mutual option exercised; one side almost always wants out. The beauty of Bautista’s deal, though, is that it includes a buyout of an unknown amount, serving both parties’ agendas. The Jays will not pay the buyout until after the season is over, increasing their payroll flexibility, while Bautista can claim that his overall guarantee beat the value of the team’s $17.2 qualifying offer.
Whether the Jays truly wanted Bautista back is an open question — they pursued numerous others in free agency and trades before reaching agreement with him on Tuesday. The Jays stood to gain the 32nd pick in the draft if another team signed Bautista, but as they lost out on better options — including their own free agent, first baseman Edwin Encarnacion — Bautista suddenly grew more attractive from both performance and public-relations perspectives.
In the meantime, he’s in the right place. A place where he is revered as opposed to reviled. A place where he can prove himself all over again, to the delight of a city — and country — that supports him far more passionately than any other market would.
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