{"id":2493,"date":"2017-01-17T15:09:46","date_gmt":"2017-01-17T20:09:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonbaseball.com\/?p=2493"},"modified":"2017-01-17T15:17:39","modified_gmt":"2017-01-17T20:17:39","slug":"jose-bautista-re-signs-blue-jays","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/2017\/01\/17\/jose-bautista-re-signs-blue-jays\/","title":{"rendered":"Jose Bautista Re-signs with Blue Jays"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong><a href=\"http:\/\/www.baseball-reference.com\/search\/search.fcgi?results=bautijo02,bautijo01&amp;search=Jose+Bautista&amp;utm_campaign=Linker&amp;utm_source=direct&amp;utm_medium=linker-\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Jose Bautista<\/a><\/strong> will be bringing his power back to the Toronto Blue Jays. The club will have him return on a one-year contract. It will pay him more than $17.2 million, and includes a mutual option for 2018. Jesse Sanchez of MLB.com was first to report the two sides were nearing a deal.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-lang=\"en\">\n<p dir=\"ltr\" lang=\"en\">Source: <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/hashtag\/BlueJays?src=hash\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">#BlueJays<\/a> have emerged as the front-runner for Jose Bautista. He&#8217;s nearing a deal with the club. <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/hashtag\/Toronto?src=hash\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">#Toronto<\/a> <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/MLB\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">@mlb<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u2014 Jesse Sanchez (@JesseSanchezMLB) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/JesseSanchezMLB\/status\/820852142202175489\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">January 16, 2017<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-lang=\"en\">\n<p dir=\"ltr\" lang=\"en\">Sources: <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/hashtag\/BlueJays?src=hash\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">#BlueJays<\/a> and Jose Bautista have agreed to a deal. Contract includes options that could keep him in Toronto through 2019.<\/p>\n<p>\u2014 Jesse Sanchez (@JesseSanchezMLB) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/JesseSanchezMLB\/status\/821445999688155136\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">January 17, 2017<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<h2><strong>Jose Bautista Re-signs with Blue Jays<\/strong><\/h2>\n<p>The 36-year-old slugger came far short of his desired nine-figure contract that he <a href=\"http:\/\/m.mlb.com\/news\/article\/165142390\/jose-bautista-tells-blue-jays-extension-terms\/\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">reportedly asked<\/a> for in a potential extension with the the Jays\u00a0during Spring Training at the beginning of 2016.\u00a0Bautista also rejected the Blue Jays $17.2 million qualifying offer which they extended to him at the end of 2016.<\/p>\n<p>Bautista was limited to 116 games in 2016, as he battled a turf toe and a Grade 1 left knee strain. He finished the season batting .234\/.366\/.452, with 22 home runs and 69 RBI, and was not selected to the All-Star Game for the first time since 2009.<\/p>\n<p>Given Bautista&#8217;s age, his injury-plagued 2016 season, the amount of money he was seeking, and the draft pick compensation attached to him, his market was a lot thinner than he perhaps originally expected.<\/p>\n<p>After the Boston Red Sox <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonbaseball.com\/2016\/12\/06\/mitch-moreland-signs-red-sox\/\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">signed<\/a> <strong><a href=\"http:\/\/www.baseball-reference.com\/players\/m\/morelmi01.shtml?utm_campaign=Linker&amp;utm_source=direct&amp;utm_medium=linker-\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Mitch Moreland<\/a><\/strong>, they joined the New York Yankees and Houston Astros as teams that were <a href=\"https:\/\/www.google.com\/url?sa=t&amp;rct=j&amp;q=&amp;esrc=s&amp;source=web&amp;cd=1&amp;cad=rja&amp;uact=8&amp;ved=0ahUKEwjOlM6_w-XQAhXJJcAKHSnUCSgQFggbMAA&amp;url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.cbssports.com%2Fmlb%2Fnews%2Fmlb-hot-stove-encarnacion-bautista-market-thin-after-red-sox-sign-mitch-moreland%2F&amp;usg=AFQjCNGpWajz8mhjj_bHZrWxYRaqOim4CA\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">likely eliminated<\/a> from signing Bautista.<\/p>\n<h3><strong>Bautista&#8217;s Career<\/strong><\/h3>\n<p>Bautista had been a journeyman earlier in his career. From 2004-2008, Bautista was a member of six different teams. Much of this movement came in the summer of 2004, when he was on five teams between June and July. He started on the\u00a0Baltimore Orioles, was claimed off waivers by\u00a0the Tampa Bay Devil Rays, purchased by the Kansas City Royals, traded to the New York Mets, and was then traded the same day to the Pittsburgh Pirates.<\/p>\n<p>Bautista experienced some stability with the Pirates, as he was in Pittsburgh for five seasons and 400 games. With the Bucs, he hit .241\/.329\/.403 with 43 home runs and 159 RBI.<\/p>\n<p>He was then traded in to the Blue Jays in August of 2008. In 2010, he had a break-out season with the team as he hit\u00a0.260\/.378\/.617 with 54 home runs and 124 RBI. That production earned him an All-Star appearance, a Silver Slugger Award, and a fourth place finish in the AL MVP Award voting.<\/p>\n<p>Now, Bautista will continue his career\u00a0with Toronto.<\/p>\n<p>Main Photo:<\/p>\n<div class=\"getty embed image\" style=\"background-color: #fff; display: inline-block; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue',Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif; color: #a7a7a7; font-size: 11px; width: 100%; max-width: 594px;\">\n<div style=\"padding: 0; margin: 0; text-align: left;\"><a style=\"color: #a7a7a7; text-decoration: none; font-weight: normal !important; border: none; display: inline-block;\" href=\"http:\/\/www.gettyimages.com\/detail\/615686844\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Embed from Getty Images<\/a><\/div>\n<div style=\"overflow: hidden; position: relative; height: 0; padding: 66.666667% 0 0 0; width: 100%;\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" style=\"display: inline-block; position: absolute; top: 0; left: 0; width: 100%; height: 100%; margin: 0;\" src=\"\/\/embed.gettyimages.com\/embed\/615686844?et=K63g5Xc8SgVckwHxzaFvTw&amp;viewMoreLink=off&amp;sig=mD59dNkK12eLqKZf2ww-xrENXDPF6NUmMpo9jnsVnfE=&amp;caption=true\" width=\"594\" height=\"396\" frameborder=\"0\" scrolling=\"no\"><\/iframe><\/div>\n<p style=\"margin: 0;\">\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>He finished the 2016 season batting .234\/.366\/.452 with 22 home runs and 69 RBI and was not selected to the All-Star Game for the first time since 2009.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":751,"featured_media":3197,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"1","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[7,35],"tags":[68,414,69,36],"class_list":["post-2493","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-bluejays","category-news","tag-baseball","tag-jose-bautista","tag-mlb","tag-toronto-blue-jays"],"modified_by":"Josh Greenberg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2493","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/751"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2493"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2493\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3197"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2493"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2493"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2493"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}