Smoak agrees to $3.9 million, 1-year deal with Blue Jays
TORONTO (AP) First baseman Justin Smoak and the Toronto Blue Jays have agreed to a $3.9 million, one-year contract and avoided arbitration.
The deal was announced Wednesday ahead of the deadline for teams to offer contracts to unsigned players on their 40-man rosters.
Smoak hit .236 with 18 homers and a career-best 59 RBIs in a bounce-back season. Taken by Texas with the 11th pick in the first round of the 2008 amateur draft, Smoak has a .224average with 92 homers and 223 RBIs. He can become a free agent after next season,
Smoak, who turns 30 on Saturday, made $1 million this year. He was claimed by Toronto off waivers from Seattle in October 2014 after hitting .202 with seven homers and 30 RBIs in 80 games with the Mariners that year. The Blue Jays failed to offer him a contract, then re-signed him, getting around the rule that prevents teams from cutting a player's salary by more than 20 percent from the previous year. Smoak earned $2,637,500 in 2013.
