Quote:
Originally Posted by The Big Chill
I think Jose's turd-ness gets overblown. The guys is passionate about winning and about succeeding on a personal level. He wears his emotions on his sleeve, and it sometimes comes out as whiny-ness. I'm not happy with his public comments the last couple of days, but I would not move him based on attitude. (And I'm not saying that you've said that, just seems to be a common opinion)
I'd seriously be looking to move Jose for these reasons:
1) This current team is not built for sustainable success, and moving Jose represents one opportunity to bring in some young players who could help in that regard
2) Jose is a prime candidate for some serious regression in the next couple of years, unless he is moved full time to DH. I think his bat will stay strong for a few years, but his range will start to go soon, and he will be more of a hinderance then a help in the OF.
3) That contract is ridiculous, and if Jose doesn't back down from those numbers, and continues to give harming interviews, he will kill his trade value.
Trading him will be a hard sell to this fan-base, and it will be disappointing after all the fun we had last season, but I think its the right move if we can find a good return for him (that hopefully includes some pitching prospects).
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There's nothing overblown as to what an asshat Jose Bautista. He's easily one, if not the, most hated player in the league outside of Toronto from both a fan and other MLB player perspective. He's the exact reason the Jays get no calls going their way.
He has a long history of being a complete ass throughout his entire career in Toronto. I won't go through the many examples of it, but it's been well documented in the Toronto media. My favourite was when we blamed the City of Toronto for his house getting broken in to because they didn't have gated communities. A guy from the Dominican who came from nothing now making 14M a year, crying that there isn't gated communities. What a joke.
Not sure if If I shared this story here before, but my wife and I had the displeasure of meeting the man in Chicago this summer when we went to see a 4 game series between the White Sox and the Jays. We had the seats right next to the dugout for all 4 games. All the players were great to the fans who travelled to see the team, except for Jose Bautista. A complete dick. One game he sawed off his bat in about the 4th inning. Guys beside us asked Gibby if they could have it. He gave it to them as a souvenir (thought that was weird as it could clearly be used as weapon, but whatever). Blue Jays end up winning the game, everyone on the team is in a good mood and is sticking around and talking to the fans. Bautista goes right into the stands and comes at the two guys with the bat. " That's my bat, my ####ing bat, where did you get that? That's my property, I paid for that, that's theft". Guys say "Sorry man we're from Toronto, Gibby gave it to us, and we just wanted to say good game and maybe get it signed". Bautista flicks his wrist at them, storms back into the dugout, makes a gesture, and refuses to acknowledge any of the little kids.
I've never in my life had an unprovoked interaction with a professional athlete like that in my life. Justin Smoak, who is actually a super nice guy despite my anger towards his strikeouts, apologized to everyone within ear shot saying "Must be a bad day". My wife, who has no preconceived notions about any of the players but has been to many different baseball games, asked me how I could be a fan of a team that a jackass like that played for.
I was willing to look away from Bautista's actions as long as we was crushing home runs, but now he's even more of a distraction. It's time for him to go, and I hope it happens before the season starts.