We already knew Jose Bautista was not about to give the Toronto Blue Jays a hometown discount, but a new report suggests he is aiming high at a $150 million contract over five years. For a 36-year old ballplayer, that is quite a chunk of change.
Rick Westhead of TSN reports Bautista is demanding a five-year contract valued at $30 million per year for a total of $150 million. The contract would make Bautista one of the highest-paid players in Major League Baseball and would more than double his annual salary due to be paid in 2016. Bautista will earn $14 million this season from Toronto just as he sets forward toward free agency in 2017.
Bautista and his agent have reportedly used Miguel Cabrera and Derek Jeter as comparisons when discussing his value to the club. A couple things to keep in mind here – Cabrera is roughly four years younger than Bautista and Jeter was, well, Jeter. Agents will do everything to state their case to get their client paid (and thus, themselves paid), but Toronto can easily counter those arguments with those facts alone.
There is no question Bautista helps make Toronto viable as a club with his performance on the field, but Bautista is at an age where sustained achievement on the field just about always takes a dip. Asking a team to pay for a player based on what he has meant to the franchise and what he will mean to the franchise over the course of the contract are two entirely different premises.
Bautista also suggests he should be paid because Toronto has the resources, an argument that does make some sense when you think about it.
“It’s no secret that in a publicly traded company everybody can track performance fairly easily,” Bautista said Monday. “Stock prices are closely monitored by the whole financial world. I think there is a direct correlation with the success of [Rogers] earnings per share after we started experiencing success. Are they going to put it out in the media and say, ‘Because of the Jays, we made all this money?’ No. But everybody can read between the lines.”
Hey, there is nothing wrong with setting the bar high and hoping for the best. But baseball has a way of seeing players of Bautista’s age begin to hit a decline, which would likely mean Toronto will end up paying the price for a contract it should have little reason to offer and uphold.
[TSN]
