Jose Bautista And The Mariners Should Not Workout A Deal
The Mariners GM Jerry Dipoto is looking to improve his team this off-season to prepare for the 2017 season. If Dipoto wants to keep moving forward and not regress, he shouldn’t spend even a single second thinking about adding Jose Bautista.
Thanks to the people at www.SportsBettingDime.com (and Bob Dutton of The News Tribune’s breaking of the news) The Mariners have a 12/1 betting chance to be the “winners” of the Jose Bautista sweepstakes.
Although with the M’s roster the way it is now, and the way the organization has built such a cohesive unit, they would most likely be labeled “losers” if they gave Bautista a contract.
Jose Bautista may be an all-star caliber power hitter, a clutch bat, and have impressive patience at the plate, but he is also aging (Bautista will turn thirty-seven next October), expensive (he expects fifteen million dollars or more a year), and he has been known for stirring the pot unnecessarily, causing all sorts of drama.
His career three hundred and eight homers, eight hundred and sixty-two RBIs and two hundred and sixty-two doubles are very good.
But for the Mariners, in particular, his signing would send a very chilling message to one of their established stars, Nelson Cruz, who often plays at Bautista’s primary position.
Cruz is not only an established all-star in his own right, but he has out-performed Bautista over the past several years due to his power surge. Cruz’s home run-type power gave him thirty more long bombs than Bautista over the last three years.
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Plus, Cruz has a much better reputation in the locker room than Bautista does, and the chemistry the Mariners have built over the last couple of years is something you can’t teach.
This goes without even mentioning that the M’s currently have Mitch Haniger, Danny Valencia, and for the moment, Seth Smith, to also fill in at right.
Simply, Bautista would complicate the playing time for those who expect it in 2017.
Furthermore, and most importantly, while Bautista and his agent have been very active contacting teams trying to feel out a deal (it seems like nearly a third of the league), there hasn’t been one inkling that even suggests that Bautista and the Mariners will join forces.
The Mariners have been looking to add more offense to their roster, which they did by getting Jean Segura and Valencia, and they would gladly take more.
But they most assuredly won’t, or more appropriately, shouldn’t take Bautista, his attitude or his price tag, which would only create chaos in the locker room, and disrupt the many working pieces of the 2016 Mariners that remain under contract.
