DUNEDIN, FLA.—Jose Bautista hates dealing in speculation. He does not like to think about the “what ifs” of remaining healthy in 2018, or, if so, of giving free agency another try. He doesn’t want to discuss the unique mutual option with the Blue Jays that, if accepted, could trigger a vested third season, creating the equivalent of a three-year, $55-million contract. Because that is all speculation.
Bautista will simply let it be known that he is where he wanted to be and believes the imaginatively constructed, 11th-hour contract, anywhere from one to three years, demonstrates his real desire to finish his career in a Blue Jays uniform.
“If you ask any player, would you have liked to get more money and more years, who’s going to say no?” Bautista shrugged. “As a player, you’re always hoping to get that great, satisfactory contract where you feel like you’re obviously getting compensated greatly and you’ve got the long commitment. I’m playing baseball. I’m making a lot of money. I’m not going to be complaining.”
It was last February, when the Raptors were hosting the NBA all-star game, that Bautista was invited to a meeting with Jays brass at the Rogers Centre and asked what he was looking for in a contract extension. Instead of starting a back-and-forth negotiation, Bautista told the Jays the exact years and dollars he wanted, dropped the mic and left. He admits that, in hindsight, his methods did not work out as hoped.
“It’s part of not necessarily being acquainted with a new group that you’re trying to get to know and negotiate with and, all at the same time, that kind of thing happens,” Bautista said. “They didn’t know me. I didn’t know them. Getting to know each other — that needed to happen. That was the moment that we were in and nothing was going to change that. That’s just the time that we were living. That’s just the transition and the moment.”
A few weeks later, when Bautista arrived at spring training, he stood before cameras on the first day and was asked if he was interested in an extension. Edwin Encarnacion had already announced that if there he did not have a new contract before opening day, negotiations were over. Bautista’s answer to media regarding staying in Toronto sounded like a “take-it-or-leave-it” proposal, one in which he vastly overpriced himself. Did he have regrets about that part of what turned into an overall disappointing year?
“In retrospect, not necessarily in changing the things that I said, maybe voicing them in a different setting and in a different way that might not get misconstrued and misunderstood the way that they did,” Bautista said.
At the time, the terms and dollars of his demand were reported as five years and $150 million. The numbers were never confirmed by the Jays, while Bautista labelled the reports as “false.” Wherever the truth of that negotiation lies, the final result — just $18.5 million guaranteed — was a far, far cry from what Bautista believed he was worth on the open market 12 months ago.
Was it a huge miscalculation or were there other forces at play in the free-agent market that nobody could predict?
Encarnacion had to wait to sign until January and accepted less from Cleveland than the Jays had offered him in November. Mark Trumbo, the O’s fearsome slugger who led the majors in homers last season, had to wait. So too did Chris Carter, who tied for the NL home-run lead. Trumbo, Carter and Bautista all signed for less than similar sluggers of a previous era.
“The market wasn’t kind to a lot of people,” Bautista said. “So, you also have to look at the landscape and the way you’re sitting in it. I can’t explain it. It was a strange off-season. That’s the only thing that I can say.
“I don’t know why. I don’t know how to explain it, but it is how most players feel, I believe. I can’t say it was surprising because anything can happen in free agency. It’s unexpected. It was different than the years before. That’s pretty obvious and that’s something that I can definitely say.”
It’s funny. There are aging professional athletes from all sports that lament that they were born too soon and speculate with their talent how much money they would be making these days. Bautista, if he had wanted, could play that game in reverse after the bottom fell out of the 2017 market for sluggers.
What if he had become a free agent a couple of years earlier? No fewer than 14 position players signed contracts with an average value of more than $20 million from 2011 to 2016, many of those less worthy than Mr. Bats. Did Bautista, while watching other GMs make it rain, ever think about asking GM Alex Anthopoulos to open up his file and re-negotiate to what he deserved?
“You always hope that the team can approach you in those situations,” Bautista said. “Some organizations do and some others don’t. But you don’t feel bad about it because you made a commitment.”
And so all that time, as others passed him by, he never approached the Jays, even as his club-friendly $16-million option year kicked in last season. “No,” he said. “I made a commitment.”
Bautista is free of the freak injuries that limited him to 116 games last season — kicking a fence in Philadelphia, catching a cleat in the turf at the Rogers Centre. He is confident his throwing arm is back, maybe not to the same above-standards of old. But he does not want to speculate about what he might do if healthy, because . . . well, he doesn’t speculate.
“Hopefully I don’t have to deal with as much stuff, and that I will enjoy myself every day a little bit more and, yeah, I’ll be a happier person,” Bautista said.
“But ultimately, even if it was a tough year to grind through, I felt like I contributed. And the team got close to where we wanted to be, but not as close as where we wanted to be.”
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