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thought it deserved its own thread

The Blue Jays and Jose Bautista are close to agreeing to a five-year contract extension worth appoximately $65MM, reports Enrique Rojas of ESPN Deportes. The deal would also include financial support for Bautista's charitable activities in Toronto and the Dominican Republic. Some details still need to be worked out and a physical must take place before the contract is finalized.

http://www.mlbtraderumors.com/2011/02/b ... tista.html

team option for 6th year

Ken Rosenthal
Source: Bautista close with #BlueJays on 5 year, $65M deal. Club option could bring total to 6/78. First reported by Enrique Rojas. #MLB

Hmmm. Not sure what to say. Sounds like a lot for one year's worth of accomplishment. Otoh, we're not supposed to care how much is paid if Rogers want to pony up.

I really like it. Roll the dice, if Bautista really is a .900 OPS guy permanently it'll be a great contract. If he isn't, it's not nearly the cap killer Wells' deal was anyways. It's worth the risk. In the AL East you have to roll the dice

I also think if Bautista repeated his superstar performance next year, we'd be looking at a 90 mil contract to keep him. And there's the risk of him being a 2 year wonder.

It's a good hedge IMO.

Holy ****. That's not good. But I'm hoping/guessing that the last two years are team options.

Wow.. I didn't think AA wanted to do 5-years.. I would've been very happy with 3 years, but committing $65 from one season, hmmmm..

Does anyone feel that with Pujols not signing an extension gave JBau more incentive to do this now?

I dunno what you guys expected, Bautista had a tremendous amount of leverage, i was prepared for a 75-85+ million dollar contract. I don't mind this at all even without the team options, a 13 million dollar annual salary isn't worth that much these days. If Bautista has another mosnter year he could earn nearly twice that much. Even if Bautista is only an above average player the next 5 years, he's worth it.

Still early for me to gauge how I feel, but my initial feeling is that JBow only wanted 10.5 for his 1 year arb deal. Signing him for 5 years at 3 million more annually isn't what I was expecting...

I have no problem with this deal. This was exactly what I figured it would cost to keep Bautista on this team and I'm glad they did it now rather than later (when it would have cost even more).

Even if he regresses to a 3-4 win player from his elite level, he will be worth this contract.

team option for 6th year

Ken Rosenthal
Source: Bautista close with #BlueJays on 5 year, $65M deal. Club option could bring total to 6/78. First reported by Enrique Rojas. #MLB

Randle McMurphy wrote:I have no problem with this deal. This was exactly what I figured it would cost to keep Bautista on this team and I'm glad they did it now rather than later (when it would have cost even more).

Even if he regresses to a 3-4 win player from his elite level, he will be worth this contract.

Can you explain the last part of your post here? Does 3-4 WAR translate to a 13mill/yr contract?


Not sure how I feel about it right now. If Rogers is good with continuing to add pieces around Bautista, then I don't think anything bad can be said with keeping him here longterm.

khin_s wrote:

Randle McMurphy wrote:I have no problem with this deal. This was exactly what I figured it would cost to keep Bautista on this team and I'm glad they did it now rather than later (when it would have cost even more).

Even if he regresses to a 3-4 win player from his elite level, he will be worth this contract.

Can you explain the last part of your post here? Does 3-4 WAR translate to a 13mill/yr contract?


Not sure how I feel about it right now. If Rogers is good with continuing to add pieces around Bautista, then I don't think anything bad can be said with keeping him here longterm.

A 3-4 WAR actually translates to 15-20 million dollars and probably more if you throw in 5% inflation. Bautista put up a 7 WAR last season, he gave us 28-35 million dollars in value last year(dollars per win was slightly lower before this offseason with the recession ending and owners opening up their checkbooks again)

5 years is far too many. Hopefully a couple of those years are team options (for our payroll sake)I don't see this guy hitting 30Hrs in a season with us.

RaptorsInsider1 wrote:5 years is far too many. Hopefully a couple of those years are team options (for our payroll sake)I don't see this guy hitting 30Hrs in a season with us.

He wasn't going to accept a contract of less than five years, not with his leverage.

Not sure about that length...

RaptorsInsider1 wrote:5 years is far too many. Hopefully a couple of those years are team options (for our payroll sake)I don't see this guy hitting 30Hrs in a season with us.

I feel like 30hrs a season is possible from him. Why wouldn't it be? His swing generates a lot of power and he's got pretty good plate discipline. Even if pitchers start pitching around him more, I think 30 hrs is still achievable for him.

exactly what I was afraid of.

Raptorsrock wrote:exactly what I was afraid of.

This is an absolute shame after the Vernon Wells trade.

Wow. This has the potential to be a bad contract. Don't get me wrong, I like Bautista and think he has turned the corner as a hitter, but this is one of the rare (first?) times that AA has bought high. The chances of Bautista repeating his 2010 season are not that great, and the only data we have of him prior to that is as a .750/1.0-2.0 WAR player. He is an iffy defender at 3B and in RF (arm aside) and is now locked up until he is 35 if this contract happens.

Of course if he repeats his 2010 season, or even comes close to it, then this contract will be a steal. But how many times do teams buy high and use that same logic? The one thing in Bautista's favor is that his walk rate is likely sustainable given his approach and his HR power (dating back to September 2009) is due to a mechanical adjustment he made to his swing so it is not a typical aberration type season that comes out of nowhere. He actually did something that lead to that season, so maybe it can be sustained moving forward (even if 50 HRs turns into 30 HRs). It's just that seeing a long list of .750 OPS seasons followed by one 1.000 OPS season and then locking him up based on that one outlier season seems like a very risky decision.

Regardless, Bautista's 2010 season was very exciting and it is good to have him back long-term if this deal happens. I just hope the number of years don't come back to haunt the Jays in this case. AJ Burnett showed how quickly three years can fly by, and BJ Ryan showed how agonizingly long five years can take. I would have preferred three years, but maybe Bautista wanted no part of it.

The issue is going to be that we'll face a real dilemma in a couple years if Bautista lives up to the front end of the deal (not repeating last year, but doing well enough that he has value)...as a team, we'll hopefully hit our prime around the same time that Jose will likely start to lose his bat speed.

I'm not sure that I would have gone five years, but it's an acceptable gamble, I suppose.

It's a big risk on both sides. If Bautista has another year anything like this year, he could be getting a $100M contract. We would look like fools for not locking him up when we could have and we'd be mad for years when he'd be pounding us playing for the Yankees.

He could regress but how much? If he's drops to .260/.350/.500 with 30 HR's then he's still worth it.

The fact is that he's the face of the franchise. He sells tickets and ad space. This team does need something for us fans this year.

I'm just happy that my JBau jersey is still good.