Far away, so close

So there's about three million bucks difference between the Jays and José Bautista, which seems like a significant gap betwixt what the team thinks he's worth and what he thinks he's worth. Except for the fact that we suspect that neither party actually believes that's what Bautista is worth, nor would be willing to chisel those numbers into granite.

Given the process within which they find themselves, the Jays were smart not to allow themselves to go overly high in their offer to Bautista, lest he snatch it up and set his course firmly towards a mostly barren free agent class follow the 2011 season. Their offer might seem low or untenable, but they couldn't paint themselves into a corner where they had no leverage while negotiating a medium or longer term deal.

For that matter, Bautista's responding figure seems low as well, and likely below what he'll eventually ask for when a multi-year agreement is presented. (And much more palatable to an arbitrator, for that matter.) Given the Jason Werth horseshittery and Dan Uggla's deal, we're figuring that JoBau's desires will be in the five-year, $65 million range, and that the Jays' offer would be closer to three and $33 million.

(We're pulling numbers out of the air here, so don't take this as anything more than jibber jabber.)

The point here, we suppose, is not to get overly set on the actual figures that have been floated thus far. They are negotiation points, but not true statements of worth or assessments of player value. And following the logic of what we said yesterday about the meaning behind the small divide with Jason Frasor indicating a larger divide between the parties, we actually think that the largish gap between Bautista and the Jays is an indication that both sides are willing to push this process to the very end, and continue working towards a longer deal rather than a one-and-done.

Which, if you think kindly on JoBau, is good news indeed.

The last days of the Sausage King's reign

If you were following along on Twitter yesterday afternoon, you might have noticed us back-and-forthing with a few fine chaps on what the future holds for Jason Frasor in Toronto. But if you had better things to do, we'll bring you up to speed.

We think this is it for Jason Frasor in Toronto.

There. You're up to speed.

"But wait!" you say. "They offered him arbitration! Does that not mean that they had some interest in retaining Frasor's services?"

To which we respond: No. To us, it means that they wanted the draft picks that they could get for him, and that they took their chances on him accepting. Which he did, which meant that they had to go through the whole charade of negotiating with him up until the deadline.

"No! You're wrong! And you're stupid and ugly too! Jason Frasor will fosh the shit out of hitters once the Jays and Frasor bridge the tiny little gap between the $3.25 Million they offered and the $3.75 Million he requested! How can they not come together?"

We may be homely (joli-laid!), but momma didn't raise no dummies. If the Jays held firm on their offer and wouldn't split the difference on what seems to negotiable divide, then we're getting the sense that they wouldn't feel especially brokenhearted if Frasor were to take his deep, spittle-drenched late-inning exhalations somewhere else next year.

"Well, Frasor's probably going to win in the arbitration room, so we'll see him back anyways. So there!"

Sometimes, losing is winning. (Wait, did we just channel The Manager?) If the Jays lose, they can still release Frasor and owe his only a marginal severance. Or they look to trade him. Or they add him to the ever-growing list of right-handed arms populating their bullpen.

Or maybe they win, and they have a guy who they didn't especially want for $3.25 Million on their roster, which could happen. But what we have a hard time envisioning is them sticking with him through the season on the off-chance that he performs well enough to ensure them a draft pick in the 60's or 70's in 2012.

Besides: If dollar bills equate in any way to respect, it's worth noting that the Jays have given more of them to Jon Rauch and Octavio Dotel (Correction! Just Rauch...see comments) in the offseason than they were willing to offer to Frasor.

A new approach to negotiating?

For years, the Jays took their streak of not busting their players' balls in arbitration hearings as a symbol of their enlightened virtue. And being that we're all a bunch of overly polite Canadians, we probably liked it that way. Those are our guys, so why do we want to be something less than accommodating to them?

(And pause now to link to Jeremy Sandler's NatPost piece from late last night which kicked off this whole line of thinking. Lest you think we have an idea of our own.)

With the deadline for avoiding hearings creeping up fast, and the Jays still holding the line on an MLB-high nine players, it seems to us that the front office has a different view on how to approach the process, and how nice is too nice. (Now, cue all of the signings avoiding the arb process dropping on one day. Boom!)

If the Jays front office does indeed continue to be slightly unconventional in their approach (and the Miguel Olivo deal certainly qualifies as that), then maybe there's something to taking a new path to purchasing the players' services.

Certainly, on the top end, the Jays are faced with an unprecedented issue with José Bautista's contract for next year. His otherworldly 2010 campaign may well force the Jays into a hearing, because really, how the hell do you square away the rest of his career with that one season?

The really interesting question is whether if the team will go to arbitration with some of the more marginal cases, and if so, what do they see as the advantage to such an approach? Niceness aside, is there really any advantage to the team staying away from the arbitration hearing? And what's to be gained by the team by going this route?

The past approach to arbitration seemed to have been one of ensuring that the players were appeased and that a few hundred thousand bucks here or there would suffice to ballast the boat. But a $100K here and $200K there, and pretty soon, you're talking real money. The sort of money that the Jays may be more interested in spending on the multitude of draft picks coming this June rather than their seventh bullpen arm and fourth outfielder.

Moreover, this front office seems to be the sort who wouldn't avoid the arbitrator's room if they thought that they could win. Given the amount of time and resources that have been dedicated to the knowledge and reconnaissance aspects of running the Jays over the past 16 months, we would at least imagine that they would know which cases they could go in and win, and from which awards they might need to walk away.

We're not wanting to present this like we know what the team (or the very polite and kindly Alex Anthopoulos) is thinking, but we wouldn't be opposed to the team taking an approach to this process that is something other than what the orthodoxy would suggest they adhere to, if only to see what the result looks like.