What Jose Bautista Is Worth, Or Putting A Price On Badassness

Jose Bautista is a badass. He’s a horseradish-snorting, bat-launching, ball-decapitating, pee-a-small-amount-in-your-pants-when-he-stares-at-you badass. But they say show your work, so fine: last Monday, Bautista met the press in Dunedin, Florida. The topic was Bautista’s impending free agency. The contract extension he signed back in February of 2011, halfway through his late-career eruption into stardom, expires after this season, which means Bautista will be a free agent for the first time at the age of 36. Bautista stood against a wall taking questions wearing a Blue Jays hat and a t-shirt that said “Home is Toronto.”

One reported suggested that Bautista might consider taking whatever deal he’s offered, keep the needs of the rest of the team in mind, and fit meekly into the Blue Jays budget, snug as the twelfth egg in a carton. Before the question was completed, Bautista shook his head. No. Just like that, he took all the eggs out of the carton and crushed them, one-by-one, without breaking eye contact.

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“I know what my value is,” Bautista said. “I think baseball has a great way of measuring each player’s value and it’s about how much of that are they willing to share with a player. I understand the business. I don’t believe in the whole budget and payroll, that’s … I don’t believe in any of that stuff.” Bautista feels about budgets and payroll the way six-year-olds feel about Santa Claus or the Republican party feels about carbon emissions. Budgets? Spending limits? What?

Another reporter started with, “Are hometown discounts … ” Bautista cut him off. “That doesn’t exist,” he said. Another question moments later: “Are you willing to negotiate in season, Jose?” Bautista shook his head. “I’m not”—he paused for a split second, just long enough to fool you into thinking there was period there—“willing to negotiate even right now. I don’t think there should be any negotiation. I think I’ve proved myself. The question has been asked ‘what will it take’ and I’ve given them an answer.”

This is precisely how a negotiation between one side that has all the goods and another that has all the money should go. Signing Bautista is not unlike walking into a grocery store to buy some peas. You don’t ask the check-out guy how he’s doing, and then ask for those peas at a discount because you come to the store a lot and you’re on a budget. Nope, not sorry. The price is right there on the damn bag. You want the peas, you pay what it says. As Bautista put, “This is not a negotiation. I told them what I wanted. They either meet it or not.” Buy the peas or get the fuck out.

Bautista has gotten some flack for his comments, of course. He was blunt and honest and that never goes over well. He could have said that he’d love to stay in Toronto and finish his career there because it’s such a beautiful city with such beautiful people and he’d be honored to wear the uniform if the team would just agree to let him stay, and also, wow, the poutine scene is out of this world. He could have been deferential and understated. Instead, Bautista treated the press and the fans like adults. Remember that bat flip? Yeah, that wasn’t free.

Bautista didn’t give a number to the press last week, because why would he? However, if reports are to be believed, Bautista asked the Jays—no, wait, told the Jays—that he wants more than five years and more than $150 million. The expected response to this is that it’s crazy. Bautista will be 36 next season! A five-year contract will take him through his age-40 season! There’s no way he’ll be worth $30 million at that age! Exclamation point!

Except for two things. First, Bautista is not wrong about his value. You may look at baseball player salaries and think they’re wildly out of control, and look at Bautista’s reported asking price and think it’s nuts. Compared to a teacher or a fire fighter, it is indeed nuts. Compared with what Major League Baseball brings in annually, and with the percentage of that revenue that’s paid to the players, it’s not.

In fact, by those measure, which are really the only measures that count in this system, baseball players are vastly underpaid. In 2014, players received under 40 percent of the record $9 billion of total revenue generated by MLB, which means the owners pocketed the lion’s share. So when Bautista says he knows what he’s worth, he ain’t lying. He knows how much owners are making off of his work, too. Paying $30 million a year isn’t nothing, but it’s far from ridiculous. Bautista knows that, if only because he has been worth more than that, on average, over the last six seasons.

Bryce Harper was asked recently if, when he becomes a free agent in three seasons, he might be the first player to sign a contract for $400 million. Harper responded, “Don’t sell me short.” He knows, too. Every player does. The more teams come to understand what a win is worth, the more the players most responsible for those wins are worth. Or should be, anyway.

The Jays are in a bit of a pickle. They can capitulate to Bautista’s demand, thereby setting a precedent they’re unlikely to find desirable. Or they can turn Bautista down in the hope that he hits the market and finds that the rest of baseball doesn’t think he’ll be worth $30 million a season as a 40-year-old, either. But at that point bridges will have been burned, and even if the price drops, the chances of him returning to Toronto are slim. They will already have told him what they think he’s worth.

Which means that, before spring training games have even begun, Bautista has done to his own team what he usually does to opposing pitchers. Namely, he has put them in a bad spot with two undesirable options. The Jays get to pick between pitching to Bautista or walking him. As in a game, it’s a binary—there is no middle ground, it’s either a strike or it’s a ball. Ordinarily, this is not how negotiations work—they’re more of a conversation about what constitutes the strike zone, and what even is a strike, really, and what’s it worth to you to have it be defined your way.

This is not that, and it is not the game Bautista is playing. Pay him what he knows he has been worth, or he’s gone. The end. “This is not a negotiation,” Bautista said, eyes still focused. “I told them what I wanted. They either meet it or … ” His voice trailed off. He didn’t need to finish the sentence. He is, you’ll recall, a badass. The rest will sort itself out.