This rumored Bautista deal scares the hell out of me.  AA managed to rid the Jays of Wells' $21 million/year contract that took him through age 35 but may sign a $15 million/year deal with Bautista that will take him through age 35?  At least Wells could play CF and had two very good seasons under his belt and some decent seasons in between.  If Bautista was 27 years old and had 2 or 3 good seasons under his belt that would be one thing, but I fear this contract, if signed, would come back to haunt the Jays.

I'll wait and see the official news, but I will be truly disappointed if the rumors are true.  Terrible signing if it happens.

Because arbitration awards aren't meant to approximate free agent salaries. In that sense Bautista's salary in his final year of arbitration eligibility is artificially depressed. Whether Bautista had won or lost his arbitration hearing, if he was a free agent after 2011 and would very likely be looking at a pay raise due to the fact 30 teams had the option on bidding on his services.

I am confused why some people think this rumoured signing is antithetical to the idea of having a team ready to contend in 2 years.

Why do some people keep saying it's $15 million per season?  C'mon, the arithmetic isn't that hard.  65 divided by 5 is 13, not 15. 

I'm surprised it looks like it will be 5 years guaranteed, but I guess the alternative is to let him play the year at the arb award price and if he has another year of 40+ HR's the price would be over $20 million per season and he probably goes to the Yankees or Red Sox.  I guess you sometimes have to hold your nose and take the plunge.  I think they'll be OK with this deal - based on how consistent Bautista's 2010 numbers were with his late 2009 numbers, I think he's legitimately turned the corner.  Don't see him falling back to hitting like he did prior to the turnaround, but it will be interesting to see how much of the 2010 surge he retains.  Any guesses on what he does over the next 5 years? 

The Podsednik signing is a nice addition.  Would make a nice platoon partner with R. Davis in CF and gives some depth in case of injury.  Hope they don't intend to have Pods and Davis in the starting 9 too often.  You need more mash than that in the OF.

If it's a five-year contract for Bautista, this actually makes me a lot more optimistic about the future of the Jays, for several reasons:  1) it means that AA and his horde of a zillion scouts have pored over the video and studied the games and concluded that Bautista is the real deal, not a one-year wonder;  2) it reduces the chances that Bautista will be traded for prospects, which I had feared would happen;  3) it means that Rogers is willing to spend money, not simply dump contracts -- a pledge that Beeston made but was never tested until now;  4) given Bautista's age and the investment in his contract, it suggests that the Jays will try to contend in 2012, rather than 2013 or 2014 as some have suggested.  Those are all very good things.

On the Podsednik acquisition, I'm surprised that some people are dismissing him as a slightly better version of Corey Patterson, destined solely for the bench.  If that's the case, who are the starting players at RF, 3B and DH this year?  Jose Bautista is good, but he can't play two positions simultaneously.  Nor can Edwin Encarnacion.  No matter how you slice it, you need more than Bautista and Encarnacion to cover those three positions in the starting lineup.  So then, looking at the existing roster, if Podsednik is on the bench, you're assuming that Juan Rivera is at RF or DH.    Should we really assume that Anthopolous is hanging onto Rivera and his completely unneccessary salary?  It's clear that AA was forced to take back Rivera in the Wells trade -- he certainly didn't seek to acquire a guy with a .720 OPS and poor defence who is owed $5.25-million this year.  And you can't trade such an over-paid player for a superior RF or 3B -- there's no GM stupid enough to offer that.  So if Rivera is traded or dumped, it's basically for nothing.  Who, then, plays in the OF for the Jays this year?  Until now, we were assuming that Anthopolous was trying to acquire a 3B or OF to solve the lineup problem.  Unfortunately, it's only Podsednik so far, and time is running out, so at some point it becomes a lot more likely that Podsednik is more than a bench player.

While I won't have done this deal, I'm not going to criticise it because I understand it - the Jays were in a no win situation either a 1 yr deal or this deal, I don't think Bautista would have settled for a 3/4 yr deal. The analysis by Dave Cameron at fangraphs probably best represent my view. The Jays also had to consider that both the Red Sox (who apparently tried to acquire him this offseason) and Yankees could be looking for RF next year and RH power is difficult to acquire. The jays with an increased emphasis in Latin America are probably viewing Bautista signing as a good anchor for that strategy

The best thing about this deal is that AA and crew having I assume done their due diligence have concluded that to the best of their knowledge Bautista season was not aided by PEDs which was a concern of mine.(Assumption)

I guess also that the FO is not that high on Moses Sierra ( and with good reason) - so if he has a good season it's likely he's trade bait - also not good news for my man Adam Loewen as one of Bautista/Lawrie is likely manning RF. 

That is true of basically every free agent contract signed.

If this team is in the position to be tossing around 5/65 for Bautista I have no idea why they traded Marcum & Wells and sat on the sidelines for every good FA.

They are paying Bautista $8 million per season less than Wells and he was better than Wells last season. Clearly there's risk in this extension for the club, but why should the team have kept an arguably inferior player for more money just because they signed an arguably better player for less money. The Jays have $8 million per season and Bautista and instead you'd rather have Wells? I think you're in the minority on that.

Marcum was traded because the team believed they have an excess of pitching and found the opportunity to acquire a talented hitting prospect.

They should have used 2011 to evaluate Bautista as an asset, not jump the gun with a what-have-you-done-for-me-lately attitude, as JP Ricciardi was wont to do.

Bautista told them, if that happened, he was going to test free agency, for which you can't blame him. If the Jays believed that was accurate, 2011 was going to be an opportunity for all 30 clubs in the majors to evaluate Bautista as an asset.

I'm still hoping the details in the report are inaccurate.

Well, everyone would love to see the last two years as club options but Bautista and his agent. However, if they are accurate, it isn't a disaster at all.

Dunn got 4/56, Martinez got 4/50, and Konerko got 3/37. In terms of annual average value, they were all right in the same range, and essentially in line with what Bautista just signed for as well. Konerko got the shorter deal because he was a little bit older than the rest, but I think we can safely say that Bautista would have been able to command a four year contract next winter had he followed up with a good 2011 season.

Ah!  $13 million per year!  I didn't even think about it I think I just read $15 million and ran with it, my apologies.  I'm rather embarrassed now.  That contract doesn't seem as bad.

I wonder what position the Jays envisioned Bautista playing when they made that deal.  I'm assuming that 2012 and beyond would see Lawrie at 3B and Bautista in RF with Gose or Marasnick eventually replacing Davis in CF, though scouts have said that Lawrie might actually be better suited to RF than 3B.  We will see.

BP has a good take on the reported Bautista signing, the article is free not just for suscribers, they actually seem to approve of the deal by the end.

LINK

The National Post has comments from Alex Anthopoulos on Podsednik...

...and on contract negotiations.

It would seem reasonable to assume that the Jays believe that his new true talent level far surpasses 3 WAR and that the "extra" money on top of what would have been his arbitration award is the cost of securing what they believe will be a below-market deal for a premium talent and not having to compete against the likes of NY and Boston for that talent on the open market.

They are paying Bautista $8 million per season less than Wells and he was better than Wells last season. Clearly there's risk in this extension for the club, but why should the team have kept an arguably inferior player for more money just because they signed an arguably better player for less money. The Jays have $8 million per season and Bautista and instead you'd rather have Wells? I think you're in the minority on that.

Nobody said anything about preferring Wells to Bautista. I prefer both. If the team is in the position to be making the same mistake it made with Vernon Wells (giving a market value deal to a FA one year before they have to), it makes no sense that they trade away their best pitcher and second best hitter from last year. And my issue with Bautista's contract isn't the money, as I'm the guy who is always whining for Rogers to spend more money - my issue is that AA destroyed Bautista's asset value the minute he offered him this extension.

Marcum was traded because the team believed they have an excess of pitching

If this is the case, woe is to us. Cliche as it may be, there's no such thing as excess pitching. I could buy the argument that it made sense to flip Marcum for a top prospect bat, but that was back when the Blue Jays were purging their roster of talent and clearly setting up the pieces for the future. Extending Bautista for 4 seasons though 1 year early runs counter to everything AA has done thus far, and makes my question the strength of his other moves.

If the Jays believed that was accurate, 2011 was going to be an opportunity for all 30 clubs in the majors to evaluate Bautista as an asset.

The other 30 clubs don't have the ability to trade Bautista at the deadline and don't receive 2 top draft picks if he leaves.

Bottom line - if AA was comfortable giving this extension to Bautista, he has to believe there's a market for him at that price. And if there is, he inherently passed up future value to the team just so he can get Bautista's name on a market-value contract - that's the exact same mistake that was made with Vernon Wells, and one this team isn't close enough to contending to be making.

Further to that, why do people seem to assume that if they just wait a year they could sign him for $x/x years? They would not have any exclusive negotiating rights after the 2011 season and if the Jayson Werth signing provides any insight it would not take a duplication of his 2010 season to see an open market contract with an AAV approaching or over $20M. Anthopoulos has stated the Jays will have to take risks to compete in the East and this seems consistent with that philosophy. There is risk but it certainly seems reasonable to me.

Obviously, if we went to arbitration with Bautista and he played out the year hitting 40 HR and solid defence we would not get him back on a 4 year, 13 million per year contract.  I don't know what he would command, though by comparison to Dunn he might not have gotten a lot more at age 31.  But I accept that he'd get more.

But even if that happens what do we lose?  We get the draft pick compensation and we continue with the rebuild.  Weigh that against the downside of the lost money if he really is more like the player he was for his first 2,000 plate appearances. 

If you accept that the Jays are going to have a payroll well north of 100 million when they're ready to compete then it's not such a bad gamble since we could absorb mediocre performance on that contract - particularly if he plays quality defence at 3B which is the key assumption on which BP bases its somewhat positive assessment of the deal.  I just think the deal is too risky on the back end when we might actually compete, and as a fan who has been in this for the long haul and is in it for the long haul, I really could care less if Bautista helps us win 83 vs. 80 games in 2011.  I want to win again.

If Vernon Wells hits like he did in 2007 or 2009, he isn't an asset at $23 million. It doesn't matter if the team's payroll is $80 or $140 million. An outfielder with a .700 OPS isn't worth $20+ million to the Yankees. As pleased as I was with Wells's production, I wouldn't want to bet $80 million on him repeating it (or $60 million or $40 million) for 4 years. You can whine for Rogers to spend more money and recognize Wells's contract was an albatross, whatever the team's payroll will sit at over the next four years.

If this is the case, woe is to us. Cliche as it may be, there's no such thing as excess pitching.

Excess pitching for shorthand for the fact that Jays believed that it would be better for the club to redistribute their assets by swapping pitching for hitting. Given the team's relative depth at pitching, Marcum's likely aging pattern and injury history, AA presumably felt it made sense to swap him for a 2B/3B/OF prospect, particularly given the system's lack of depth at 2B or 3B in the minors.

Extending Bautista for 4 seasons though 1 year early runs counter to everything AA has done thus far, and makes my question the strength of his other moves.

I don't think extending Bautista runs counter to everything AA has done at all. This simply doesn't follow.

The other 30 clubs don't have the ability to trade Bautista at the deadline and don't receive 2 top draft picks if he leaves.

Look, supplemental round picks are great for players like Barajas or John Buck. Supplemental round picks are usually not good return for a 35 homer pitcher. It is not good return to lose a star level player for the 40th and 56th overall picks. Sure, the Jays could have traded Bautista at the deadline, but that return will necessarily be limited by the fact that Bautista, if he is true to his word, would not have negotiated an extension with his new club.

one this team isn't close enough to contending to be making.

When do you think this club will be close enough to contend? There is nothing inconsistent with trading Marcum and Wells, signing Bautista and getting the club ready to contend in 2012 or more likely 2013. I don't understand your fascination with "future value," as whatever Bautista's future value is, it is limited by the amount of time he is under contract.

In fact, keeping Bautista is allows the team to contend in 2012 or 2013, as he will still be performing at whatever level he settles in at (acknowledging the risk about him repeating his performance). He is not that old and does not have a lot of wear on his body. Two supplemental draft picks in the 2012 draft, for example, will not be contributing in 2013. If they make it, they'll probably begin to contribute in 2014 or 2015.

Comments from Ken Rosenthal on the deal:

Uggla is far more proven, the only second baseman in history to hit 30 home runs in four consecutive seasons. Bautista, though, is a better and more versatile defender, capable of playing all three outfield positions as well as first, second and third base. He also has a more athletic frame than Uggla, and figures to age well....Bautista’s work ethic is impeccable. He cares deeply about winning. John Farrell, the Jays’ new manager, was impressed by how Bautista mentored top prospect Brett Lawrie at a recent mini-camp, knowing that Lawrie could take over at third base, Bautista’s preferred position.

http://msn.foxsports.com/mlb/story/Jose-Bautista-Toronto-Blue-Jays-big-money-deal-worth-risk-021711

Just awful fact-checking.  Bautista can play LF, CF, RF, 3B, 2B and 1B?  All this is news to me! And he prefers 3B over RF?  What, has Jose had a change of heart on this recently? No.

The National Post says the Jays will hold a press conference today at 5:00 pm Eastern to announce Bautista's new deal.

Dunn is a useful comparison because he was a free agent this offseason coming off of a 3.9 WAR season.  He got 4 years at 14 million per year as a 31 year old.  If we had gone to arbitration with Bautista he would have been a free agent as a 31 year old.  If we assume Bautista is worth 9 million this year (i.e. the midpoint between arbitration numbers), the rest of the contract is the same years and total dollar value as Dunn.  Nobody thinks Bautista will repeat his 6.9 WAR season.  I think we would all be happy with a 3.9 WAR season out of Bautista and that's what Dunn had when he hit the market. 

They are different players in terms of their skill set and defensive value, but they each provide value to their teams in different ways.  The free market has assigned a value to the contribution that Dunn provides.  Dunn is the very definition of consistency (40 HR, 100 RBI).  I know we're not paying for Bautista to repeat 2010, but we're not discounting the risk in his projection a whole lot, compared to the value we could get out of free agents like Dunn assuming we let Bautista walk as a FA, take the picks, and sign someone else.

Martinez is a bad comp. He's a contact hitter whose value is tied to scarcity at a position he can't field. Poor man's Magglio Ordonez. Much less potential for marginal wins than Bautista.

Konerko is a great comp as a baseball player. Dead pull hitter in dead pull heaven. One problem: he's 35. For contract purposes, he and Bautista are apples and oranges.

The National Post article on Podsednik (linked above by #2JBrumfield) is interesting, but the quote from AA is a little misleading, because he makes it very clear (further down in the same story) that Podsednik has a chance to beat out Rivera for a starting job.  Here is the relevant passage:   "If he excels, he could put pressure on a starter, Anthopoulos acknowledged.  Neither Snider, Davis nor Rivera have been promised starting jobs, and 'things can certainly change … We’re open-minded. We have to stay fluid,' Anthopoulos said."

There are also quotes from Anthopolous in the Star which suggest that Podsednik can win a job as a starter.  Here is the excerpt:  "Podsednik, who led the majors with 70 stolen bases in 2004, gives the Jays an option for a fourth outfielder, or a starter in one of the corner outfield positions .... 'Scott will come in to compete for a job, he’ll come in to compete for a spot (in the outfield) or as a bench player,' Anthopoulos said Wednesday night.   'He’s here to win a spot on the 25 man roster and if he does that, we’ll see from there.' ....  Given injuries, individual performances, and matchups, the outfield could shuffle from time to time to see Patterson in centre, Snider moving between the corner outfield positions, and Podsednik in left."

Another very plausible scenario is the one mentioned upthread by "onecent" who suggested that Podsednik and Rivera could platoon in LF.  If the Jays are unable to trade or dump Rivera, a platoon at LF is a very reasonable option.

P.S. to #2J ... really, really nice piece to anchor the thread. You included many things I either never knew or had forgotten about Scooter Podsednik.

But really, "Great Scott!"?? Why not "Toronto takes on a Scott-ish brogue"? Why not? Because it's even worse? Oh, um, yeah ...

I had Back to the Future on my mind but the best headline would have been "From Royal Blue to Dodger Blue to Blue Jay Blue, Voulez Vous - A-Ha!!  A missed opportunity for the Abba reference!!  Maybe we should go Rocky and Bullwinkle and have alternative titles for each thread.

Meantime, the Seattle Times catches up with Don Wakamatsu and here is the Globe article on Don Wakamatsu that I believe Mike "Color of Money" Green was referring to on the Jays new bench boss.