Blue Jays sign Jose Bautista Long Term

I know this post is a little late, but I really wanted to to wait for the dust to settle before diving in (read: I'm lazy). Now that it's basically official, let's take a look at what could either be one of the better signings in Blue Jays history or yet another Wellsian albatross.

I first commented on the potential signing of Jose Bautista a couple of days ago, saying that it would be in the team's best interest to sign their best player to a long term contract now, rather than after the season. My reasoning being that because of their newfound financial flexibility resulting from the Vernon Wells and Alex Rios trades (getting rid of in Rios' case) they could take a chance on signing Bautista and not having the contract hamstring the team should he fall back to earth. Had the Jays waited until next offseason, and Jose put up comparable numbers, we'd be looking at a $100M+ contract. I just didn't see how the reward of waiting justified the risk of losing him to free agency or having to fork over a nine figure contract. That being said, I based my opinion on the assumption that we'd be looking at most a 3 year deal worth $45M, not 6 years and $64M.

I could go on forever jumping back and forth between the positives and negatives about this deal, but instead I'm going to try to summarize my overall thought about the signing in the next paragraph (and a half):

There is not doubt that Jose Baustista is an elite baseball player. Regular baseball players don't typically hit 50+ homeruns, outlier or not. The team is better with him on it, and when it really comes down to it, this contract is not going to make or break the the Jays' long term plans regardless of Jose's performance throughout it. The team has a plethora of talent coming up through the minors who should be impact players in the next couple of years. Those players don't cost much, and will be with the team (barring a trade, injury, etc.) throughout the duration of Bautista's contract. If the team is loaded with young, controllable talent with only a couple veteran players making high salaries, I fail to see how a potentially bad contract or two pushes the payroll too high for Rogers' deep pockets. Their estimated opening day payroll for 2011 is $70M, and that includes the $8M Bautista is receiving this year. Bump that up to $80-85M in 2012 commitments and there is still a ton of flexibility for Anthopolous to sign a free agent or two to put the team over the top. This of course is assuming Beeston hasn't been bullshitting us and that the Jays' payroll can be up to $140M+ when the time is right. That's a big assumption.

I don't condone the spending of money just because it's burning a hole in your pocket, but this deal could very well turn out to be a great one for the Jays. The chances of it failing are equally as high, but that doesn't mean the team just pissed away millions of dollars on some jabroni. They took a calculated risk. Those don't always work out, but thanks to the money they've recently saved and the backing of the richest ownership group in baseball, I believe it was a risk worth taking.

Extra Note:
We still haven't factored in the additional revenue brought in by the Jays with this signing. I agree that a single player doesn't bring people into the stands, but a quality product does. The Jays are a better team with Jose Bautista on it and if he's able to come remotely close to the player he was in 2010 for (at least) two years of the contract he'll help this team contend, add excitement and subsequently bring people to the Rogers Centre. It's very easy to say that "Rogers is a corporation whose sole responsibility is to its shareholders" and hense giving out large contracts to unproven players acts against that ingrained responsibility, but you have to take into account that a portion (how big a portion we are yet to have any idea) of the money spent on Bautista is directly returned to the team in the form of a better product resulting in more fans. I realize this is very difficult to quantify, but for anyone taking the stand that Rogers acted against its core principles as a for-profit corporation by "risking" so much money on an unproven asset has not factored in the fact that Bautista also creates a direct return on investment.

Jose Bautista arbitration hearing pushed back

According to Enrique Rojas of ESPN, and later confirmed by everybody on the internet, the Jays and Jose Bautista have agreed to push back the date of their arbitration hearing four days in order to further discuss a muli-year deal. This is great news for any Jays fan wanting the team to lock up their best player for the next several years as it clearly indicates the sides are working towards a deal.

There are two main schools of thought when it comes to the potential of signing Bautista to a long term(ish) contract. I won't get into the discussion of whether or not the Jays should actually sign him - because that argument has been beaten to a pulp - but instead will focus on whether the team should sign Jose now or wait for him to prove himself for one more year before locking him up.

The first argument centres around the idea that since the Jays unloaded the massive Vernon Wells contract, along with Alex Rios' contract the year before, they now have the financial flexibility to to take a "wait-and-see" approach with Bautista. This argument has been..ugh..argued..at Getting Blanked (which if you're a baseball fan and haven't yet read, do yourself a favour and bookmark the shit out of it). The argument follows that the Jays can now afford to risk having to pay him the massive contract that he no-doubt will command should he produce numbers even close to what he accomplished last year. Instead of getting hamstrung with another large contract committed to an under-producing player (because they want to take advantage of the discount the team would receive by taking a chance on Bautista's ability to replicate last year's performance) they can simply wait until next offseason to better judge Bautista's talent.

I tend to disagree with that argument. A lot. I look at the Jays the newfound financial where-with-all as an opportunity to take a chance on Bautista being able to replicate his 2010 performance. This is all within reason, of course, but if the two sides can agree to a 3-year contract in the $30-$45M range then I (as a Jays fan) would be more than willing to take the chance.

I think we can all agree that it will be tough for Bautista to put up the ridiculous numbers he did last year, but even if his homerun production drops by 20, he's still a 30 homerun guy who adds significant value to the team in other areas with his defensive flexibility and OBP. I'm not saying he's a great defender by any means, but he's a capable defender who is able to be moved around to different positions, allowing the Jays to set their young prospects up for success by being able to place them in the field where they are most comfortable (re: Brett Lawrie).
Even if Bautista's production siginificantly drops, he'll still provide value, and if the team can sign him for three years then with the money saved on the Wells and Rios deals they can afford to pay a bad contract. It's not really all that big of a risk. This all changes, though, if Bautista is looking for a 5+ year contract. If that's the case, then run Alex, run!

I also find it hard to accept as an argument that one more year is enough to solidify Bautista as a legitimate superstar. If the wait-and-see argument takes into account that we don't yet know if Bautista is for real, are we really THAT much more confident in his long-term viabilty after two years of success? Obviously two years is a greater sample size to judge just that, but are the additional at bats really worth what would likely be a contract double the size of what the Jays could sign him for today? I think not.  

It should be an interesting next four days!