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.
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