Sweet Mary and Jose(ph)

Now before we all start shitting ourselves about this supposed 5-year $65mil deal with Jose Bautista as reported by Enrique Rojas of ESPN Deportes, lets keep in mind that this is not an official deal. Rojas reports that the sides are "close" to an agreement, which means that they are probably working out the final small numbers and option year(s) etc. Either way, the numbers really shouldn't change a whole lot and I'm still not sold on the huge payday for the man who slugged 54 last season. The reason being is AA worked his voodoo magic since taking the throne to rid the Jays of the absolute bullshit contracts of Alex Rios and Vernon Wells in order to free up some dollar bills for the future. And I feel he took a small step backwards and into a pile of goose shit. This is a massive deal for Bautista, and could be awesome for us too- but you can't expect him to repeat those kinds of numbers - .260/.378/.617 with 54 HR and 124 RBI. Well, maybe the batting average part.Now before you go and peg me as a hater, let me just clear the air and say that I really do like Jose; just not for $65mil. It's wishful thinking at this point that deal is front-loaded because I sure as shit don't want to cough up $13 million in 2014 and 2015. I'm sure he will be a major asset to our lineup considering in the latter half of the 2010 season he still managed to hit 30 bombs off of pitchers that still couldn't figure out how to pitch him.


I want to relay a nice little bit of baseball nerd data I found from the guys over at DJF, "

David Cameron of FanGraphs passes on an interesting bit of analysis, via Twitter. "With standard aging curve and 5% inflation assumption, 5/65 for Bautista values him as a +3.5 win player," he says. "Sounds about right, actually."

Essentially in sabermetric talk, this means that with Jose in the lineup, the Jays should win 3.5 more games this season that they would without him. 


Ideally, I wish they would've taken the arbitration talks and signed him for the $10.5 that he asked for. But after all of this, the only thing I can hope for is to see them shave a year off of this report and drop it down a few million. Let's say...4 years at $56 million ($14 mil per season). This should keep him happy, allow for more long-term flexibility on the payroll, and provide a leader (and hispanic translator) in the clubhouse. 

If this deal raised your blood pressure, or you want to celly hard because our Jays are on the verge of locking up your (new) favourite player, then share the moment with this first of many "...What?" links that I'll start throwing in whenever I feel like it. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lQ4xt77TeeU