The Atlanta Braves are calling up former home run monster Jose Bautista in the hope that he can fill their gap at third base. Will he be able to recapture a bit of the magic that once made him one of the most feared hitters in all of baseball?
Jose Bautista will be the starting third baseman for the Atlanta Braves tonight when they take the field against the San Francisco Giants. The right-handed slugger has had a storied and, at times, tumultuous career. He struggled to break through until his age 29 season before becoming one of the most feared hitters in the league. Can he add to an already dynamic and potent Braves offense?
The road already walked.
In June of 2000, the Pittsburgh Pirates drafted Jose Bautista in the 20th round as a toolsy but raw prospect. His early minor league career showed flashes of the hitter he might become but lacked consistency. He found himself bouncing around from team to team as his prime years began ticking away.
The slugger even became the first player to appear on the rosters of five different clubs in the same season in 2004. He went from the Baltimore Orioles to the Tampa Bay Devil Rays, then to the Kansas City Royals and the New York Mets before finally ending up back with the Pirates to finish the season. The Pirates then traded him to the Toronto Blue Jays in August of 2008 where he stayed through the end of last year.
It was in Toronto that Jose Bautista became Jose Bautista. In his first season with the team, he struggled to find consistent playing time. But after Dwayne Murphy was moved from first base coach to hitting coach, he was able to help Bautista explode onto the scene. They introduced his famous high leg kick to help him leverage his pull power, and the rest is history. In September of that year, the corner outfielder crushed 10 home runs.
The following season, Jose Bautista joined the vaunted 50 home run club and made his first All-Star game. He had arrived and would continue to terrify pitchers, posting wRC+’s between 137 and 181 over his first six seasons as a full-time starter. In 2016, age began to catch up with him, and he played in only 116 games managing just a 122 wRC+. 2017 appeared to be the end with an 80 wRC+ at age 36.