The 54 Home Run Question

When the Blue Jays arrived in Baltimore for the final three games of their dismal 2009 season, the team was in complete disarray. A variety of resentments towards manager Cito Gaston and his coaching staff boiled over into a “mutiny,” the funniest recorded level of clubhouse revolt. As team president Paul Beeston flew in to be a featured guest at a players-only meeting the next day, José Bautista quietly homered in his fourth straight game. 

It was the first sighting of the José Bautista that Blue Jays fans would come to know and love. He appeared in just 21 games for Toronto in 2008 after being acquired from Pittsburgh, but behind the scenes, Bautista was beginning a makeover that changed his career. Gaston and hitting coach Gene Tenace encouraged Bautista to pull driveable pitches and start his swing earlier. The changes were anything but small, and it took Bautista some time to adapt. “The way that I would compare it would be if somebody tells you to brush your teeth with your left hand and not your right hand,” recalled the right-handed Bautista. 

After hitting only two home runs in the first half of 2009, Bautista was given an opportunity in the weeks following the All-Star Game. After the break, the disappointing Blue Jays dealt third baseman Scott Rolen to Cincinnati before letting White Sox GM Kenny Williams shoplift Alex Rios from the waiver wire. As a result, Bautista found himself with more playing time, and by September, the switch had flipped. As his leg kick heightened at the plate, so did his power: Bautista hit more home runs in September (10) than he did the rest of the season (three).

Bautista’s swing transformation throughout the 2009 season is fun to watch; you can see the difference in his early-season blasts compared to September. At least stay for the first 25 seconds, featuring a depressed-at-his-best Hawk Harrelson calling Bautista’s first home run of the year in a drubbing of the White Sox.

Other than Bautista (“I 100 per cent felt different”) and perhaps his manager, no one knew that the player’s transformation into Joey Bats had already taken place. Bautista avoided arbitration with Toronto and its new general manager Alex Anthopoulos, returning on a $2.4 million deal for 2010. After his Grapefruit League batting average hovered around .500 all spring, Gaston penciled Bautista into the leadoff spot on Opening Day. Still, when Bautista hit his first home run of the year on April 11 in Baltimore, no one knew what was to come.

Bautista erupted for 54 home runs that season to lead the major leagues and set a new Blue Jays single-season record. After Toronto’s 85th win of the year in the season finale in Minneapolis, Bautista was embraced near the top of the dugout by Gaston. Suffering through “one of the worst winters of his life,” Gaston returned for one more season and watched as his last protégé set fire to the American League. A year before, a worn-down Gaston was asked about Bautista during the season’s final weekend in Baltimore. If José were an everyday player, the manager said, “He’d have a chance to do some damage.”

One day, I’m going to write 30,000 words about the mutiny at the end of the 2009 season, but Bautista’s breakout gave Gaston’s woeful second tenure some positive and lasting meaning. (photo credit: Sportsnet/CP)

Bautista’s emergence left Anthopoulos at a crossroads in the offseason. Bautista would be arbitration-eligible one final time. Left with a year of control, Anthopoulos explored his options. On the trade market, Bautista’s name was met with skepticism. No general manager wanted to acquire the second coming of Brady Anderson and told Anthopoulos as much. Plus, the Blue Jays were coming off a winning season despite trading Roy Halladay the previous winter. Would trading a fan favourite for a second straight offseason be palatable to the fans? A trade was not going to happen.

Anthopoulos didn’t feel much urgency in addressing his emerged slugger’s contract, and neither did Bautista. Prior to Game 4 of the World Series, Bautista was named the Hank Aaron Award winner as the American League’s top offensive player and said he had not yet received any offers from the Blue Jays. “I’m not worried by any concern the team might have whether I can repeat it or not,” said Bautista. “I have no problems with an arbitration deal and going back out there and hopefully doing as well as I did last year.”

Bautista would also win a Silver Slugger award in 2010, and while he was hopeful in a wide-open AL MVP race, he finished fourth, with one first-place vote courtesy of Shi Davidi, then of the Canadian Press. (photo credit: Sportsnet)

Arbitration seemed to be the way things were headed. When the deadline to file for arbitration came in January, Bautista sought a $10.5 million salary, nearly $3 million more than Toronto offered. Anthopoulos refused to negotiate one-year pacts with players once arbitration numbers were filed, but door number three, a long-term deal, was still on the table. Richard Griffin of the Toronto Star felt the team intended to extend Bautista all along and was “content to lose the arbitration decision” if it came to it.

On Valentine’s Day, a panel was scheduled to hear the arbitration case before the two sides decided to postpone the hearing. Negotiations on an extension were ongoing, said Anthopoulos, and the Blue Jays’ payroll situation had also changed recently. Having failed to land Adrian Beltré or Carl Crawford as free agents, the Angels foolishly traded for Toronto outfielder Vernon Wells. The subtractions of Rios and then Wells had taken nearly $39 million off Toronto’s payroll for the 2011 season alone.

Bautista and the Blue Jays agreed to delay the arbitration hearing until the last possible minute. Two nights before the deadline, Enrique Rojas of ESPN Deportes dropped the big news: Bautista and the Blue Jays were in agreement on a five-year, $65 million extension with a team option for a sixth season. The contract was official the next day. “We could have paid him for one year, and we could have waited to see what he does this season,” Anthopoulos said, “But I believe it’s the right time to sign him, and that’s my job.”

When news of the extension broke, several player agents called Toronto’s general manager asking if he had lost his mind. Even the pro-extension crowd recognized the risk in the commitment to Bautista, owner of one great season and a bunch of meh previous. Anthopoulos didn’t shy away from criticisms, but they found a way to eat at him. “I remember on my daily drive to the ballpark in Dunedin two or three days after the fact just thinking, ‘Did we do the right thing, did we make a mistake?’,” he recounted to Shi Davidi, “You can’t help it when there’s an avalanche of criticism and second-guessing.” 

When the newly wealthy Bautista arrived in Dunedin to start spring, it was easy to forget this would be the first time the new face of the franchise wouldn’t spend his March fighting for a roster spot. Playing under new expectations, Bautista followed up his 54 home run season with the most complete offensive performance of his career. Once again leading the majors in home runs (43), Bautista also posted a major-league best OPS (1.056) and drew more walks (132) than anyone else in baseball. It was production the Blue Jays happily came to expect from Bautista as his contract continued forward.