NASHVILLE, Tenn. – Premium power hitters don’t often get to the open market, which is why the free agency of Chris Davis is one worth keeping a close eye on for the Toronto Blue Jays.
The Baltimore Orioles are said to have tabled their slugger an offer of $150 million over seven years, and he is reportedly looking to crack $200 million. If you’re Edwin Encarnacion and Jose Bautista, both eligible for free agency next fall, that’s catching your attention.
Whatever number Davis lands at doesn’t offer an exact barometer of the future for the Blue Jays power duo should they reach the marketplace – they hit home runs but are different players with significantly different variables – but it will offer some indication of how other teams value power.
We know already how stupid the money has gotten for upper- and middle-tier starters this off-season and now Davis, Jason Heyward, Yoenis Cespedes and Justin Upton are looking to get theirs.
“These would be unique guys in free agency, if you look at the circumstances around them for both performance levels and other things as well,” Blue Jays president and CEO Mark Shapiro said of his sluggers Wednesday at the winter meetings. “You never know what a free agent market is going to be until you’re in it, that’s where the risk comes in for the player. You just don’t know what that’s going to be.”
The reasonable guess, especially if they can perform similarly next season to the way they did this past one, is that the market for them is going to be rather robust. As a general rule, these types of players don’t tend to get cheaper.
“We’ve seen a dramatic reduction in power and the ability to hit even 30 home runs,” said agent Scott Boras, who represents Davis, among other prime free agents. “It’s something that’s really going to be a commodity in the future.”
Worth noting, too, is that the New York Yankees have at least $38 million coming off the books next year when the contracts for Mark Teixeira and Carlos Beltran expire, which could mark their return to free agency and significantly alter the market. Put all together, if the Blue Jays want to lock up one or both of their sluggers beyond 2016, they’re better off doing it sooner rather than later.
That being said, Shapiro certainly changed the conversation Wednesday by saying he does have an interest in extending both players, but also explaining that there are enough other things on the team’s plate right now that take a higher priority. Between filling out the 2016 roster, building up minor-league depth, restructuring the front office and preparing for up to nine arbitration cases in January, the Blue Jays have plenty to work through.
“We’ve only got so many human beings who can lift the rocks up the hill,” said Shapiro, adding later: “At some point we will turn our attention away from this year’s team, at least a portion of it, and start looking at those contract issues and the other things that lurk for us.”
There are also longer-term planning questions, particularly when it comes to the payroll for 2017 and beyond, the Blue Jays will need a better grasp of before they can make the type of financial commitment that will be required to re-sign Encarnacion and/or Bautista.
“It’s a business so you know where revenues are now, you know where you hope to grow them to, you know what it could mean if you have a winning year this year to continue to grow upon last year, so you start to get some ideas of where the upper range of payrolls might be,” said Shapiro. “Obviously team performance will be a big part of that.”
Another issue is the weakened Canadian dollar and its growing gap against the American greenback. Shapiro insisted the 2016 payroll will be higher than that in 2015, but when asked if that is partly because the same amount of U.S. money is more expensive now than last season, he replied: “The exchange rate has a factor on expenses.”
As things stand now, the Blue Jays have an estimated $135 million committed to their roster. For 2017, they have $67.5 million committed to four players, $53 million on the books to three players in 2018, although Josh Donaldson will be making major money in arbitration those seasons and that needs to be considered, too.
If the payroll doesn’t rise substantially from the $135-$140-million range it’s believed to be at right now, the Blue Jays will have a very hard time shoehorning in both Bautista and Encarnacion.
Asked if they could afford to extend both players, Shapiro replied: “Theoretically, at the expense of other players, yes. The question gets back to what would the team look like around them if you did that, what are your revenues going to be, where will your payroll be. We don’t have certainty on a lot of those things right now. As time goes on we’ll get more and more of those answers.”
Time, however, is not necessarily on the Blue Jays’ side.
Encarnacion’s representatives made it clear to the Blue Jays that he doesn’t want negotiations extending into the regular season. Ideally, neither he nor Bautista has to deal with the distraction while trying to help defend the American League East championship.
Additionally, the closer a player gets to free agency, the less incentive he typically has to sign an extension without learning how the market values him.
“We’ll be respectful of a player’s wishes, but we’re not going to be black and white,” Shapiro said of Encarnacion’s deadline. “So we may say, ‘Hey, is there an ability to revisit it for three days over the all-star break when you’re not playing? Is that something you want no matter what?’ That’s one of the reasons agents exist, to deflect that from a player. They’re going to know their player. So we’re never going to set rules that are so rock solid that we can’t reconsider them if it benefits both parties. The underlying desire is always going to be to keep a player like that here.”
The Blue Jays kept both Bautista and Encarnacion in Toronto the last time they approached free agency with what turned out to be very club-friendly deals.
Bautista’s contract signed in February 2011 will pay him a total of $78 million over six years, while Encarnacion’s deal agreed to July 2012 will pay him a total of $37 million over four years. Both are believed to want to stay, but neither is likely to offer a major hometown discount.
“A multi-year contract is about sharing risk and can you find that sweet spot where the player feels good about the risk he’s taking, giving up what could be out there on the open marketplace, and the club has to assess what risks exist for them, either in health, performance or the other circumstances, which is team performance, revenue, all the other things that go into building a team,” said Shapiro.
“Right now, we’ve got some other things we’ve got to take care of. These jobs are you’ve got 1,000 balls up in the air, and to be successful you have to prioritize. Those are big issues that are looming but right now we’ve got to fill some spots on this team. In order to have the best team possible to ensure the best sources of revenue and the most excitement for our fans, what we need to focus on right now is 2016.”
Searching for the sweet spot will mean a whole lot more than just putting barrel to baseball this spring training for the Blue Jays.