Well here's the thing. If we release him we owe him 5.2M for this year and 200k (I think) to buy out his option for next year. So 5.4M.
After we release him, there probably would be a few teams that would sign him on a 1 year deal. But they have no motivation to pay much (released players by definition tend to be desperate fringe guys), nor does Happ really care how much the new team pays him because we still have to pay the difference.
Say the Rangers sign him. Whether they pay him 500k or 2.0M, it deosn't matter to him, he gets paid the same total amount either way. It's just a matter of how much of it the Jays pay vs how much the Rangers pay. And he JUST MIGHT want to f*** his old team over by signing for as little as he can.
(no expert in the area, but I reserached this 2 years ago when I thought they should release Adam Lind. Which I'm glad they didn't LOL)