Jose Bautista has given the Toronto Blue Jays his list of demands for what it would take to keep him beyond 2016.
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“If this is going to happen, they should know what it takes, and I told them the number because they asked me”, Bautista said. He called his last deal, a five-year $65 million deal which was one of the most team-friendly contracts in all of baseball, a “hometown discount”. He elaborated by saying ‘there’s no negotiation, they either meet it or it is what it is’. Money not spent on long-term deals for Bautista and Encarnacion could be used to shore up the minor league system – decimated a year ago by a series of trades that brought in a couple of big names (the half-season rental of David Price, Josh Donaldson) – but it would probably send a message to Blue Jays fans that the chase for championships is over for the time being, and another rebuilding process is under way. Bautista understands that he is the face of the franchise and that Game 5 home run against the Rangers became his giant exclamation mark. “I think he just laid things out how he saw things and we’ll just move from there and see where it goes”.
When a star player is in a contract year, we often hear feel-good stories about potential hometown discounts so the current team can hold onto their star. It is what it is, I’m not going to sit here and try to bargain for a few dollars. Since Bautista came out so aggressively to the press yesterday, my best estimation is that Jose is asking for at least five years on a new contract. By season’s end, he had a 13-8 record and had made 28 starts with a 3.13 ERA, tossing 181 innings, more than in any of his previous seven big-league seasons.
“To me, it’s not a cloud”, Atkins said of the apparent impasse. Bautista may have strained the relationship with the Blue Jays already thus leading to a career finished elsewhere. When asked, Bautista did answer with an ’emphatic yes’ when asked if he could play for another five years.
In recent years, free agency has shown to be a lucrative position for players to be in. 250 with 40 homers and 114 RBIs last season.
In the off-season, the Blue Jays picked up the 2016 option on Bautista’s contract for $14 million.
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Among the 20 highest-paid free agents who had signed through Monday, as listed by Spotrac, only three had re-upped with their teams from 2015 – Yoenis Cespedes with the Mets, Chris Davis with the Orioles and Alex Gordon with the Royals. The mantra has been set, and let’s see how it goes: “We just can’t get into the specifics”, he said. Toronto Blue Jays outfielder Jose Bautista takes ground balls at shortstop as shortstop Troy Tulowitzki, left, smiles and watches during the first official spring training baseball workout in Dunedin, Fla., Monda…
