Toronto Blue Jays should Trade Jose Bautista
By Josh Sippie
The Toronto Blue Jays are in an interesting situation. They’ve scored more runs than any other Major League Baseball team. They also have a +14 run differential. But they sit dead last in the American East because the only thing that the Blue Jays do better than score massive amounts of runs, is give up massive amounts of runs – 214 runs to be exact, which is bettered (or worsed, rather) only by the Milwaukee Brewers and Colorado Rockies.
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It’s quite clear that power isn’t everything, so while the Blue Jays may be touting the most fierce line up in the world of baseball, they can’t stop anyone from looking just as fierce.
Only one of the Toronto Blue Jays starting pitchers has an ERA under four: that’s Marco Estrada at 3.55. Aaron Sanchez is at a 4.17. The other three, the supposed top three on the team, all have ERAs in the 5.00 or 6.00 range. Mark Buehrle is rocking a 5.36 ERA, R.A. Dickey has a cool 5.49 and the ace of the staff Drew Hutchinson has a 6.06 ERA.
Next to the starting rotation, the bullpen is fairing just as well. The Toronto Blue Jays have an atrocious save percentage of 46.15%. That means that they are more likely to blow a save than convert it.
It’s pretty clear, therefore, that the Toronto Blue Jays need to do something, lest they lose all hope of maintaining a threat on the AL East. Plenty of starting pitchers are available, from Scott Kazmir to Cole Hamels to Aaron Harang. Although Hamels refused to waive his no-trade clause to move to Toronto (per CBSSports), the fact that the Blue Jays are shopping around should bring joy to plenty of Blue Jays’ faithful.
The most valuable piece of trade bait that the Blue Jays currently have is Jose Bautista. While his name is sure to bring plenty of naysayers to the ‘trade him!’ idea, he’s by far the most logical option. Jose Bautista, Josh Donaldson and Edwin Encarnacion make up the power stroke of the Blue Jays line up, but both Encarnacion and Donaldson are doing far superior to Joey Bats.
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That could actually be beneficial to the Toronto Blue Jays because Jose Bautista’s name carries more value than Encarnacion’s or Donaldson’s statistics. So despite Jose Bautista being third on the Jays in power numbers, he’s still their most valuable trade piece. That’s quite the fortunate scenario and one they should capitalize on as soon as possible.
Plenty of teams out there need an infusion of power. Jose Bautista is exactly that. One starting pitcher would make an immense difference for the Jays and don’t even get me started on what two could do, then they’d have an entire half of a rotation. Throw in a solid reliever or two and the Jays are in business.
The Blue Jays deserve to be in contention and they will be, but they absolutely have to move a struggling Jose Bautista while he’s still near the top of his value. They could risk waiting for him to return to form, but they could be massively upset if this is just a .225 year for him. He’s hit some low points not too far from that and it could be in him to have a down year.
Either way, even if he does go somewhere else and re-explode onto the scene, the Blue Jays still have a fantastic power stroke and their pitching will have been bolstered. It’s a no-lose scenario.