Cameron on Bautista

From Dave Cameron's top 50 trade value series, in which the Head Nerd in Charge ranks Jose Bautista the second-most valuable trade commodity in baseball, behind only Evan "Paid in Foodstamps and a Lifetime Supply of Orange Juice" Longoria. (emphasis mine):

At just $14 million per year for each of the next four years, he’s producing at a best-player-in-baseball level while getting paid a little less than Jason Bay or Adam Dunn. The Blue Jays saved themselves at least $100 million with the extension they gave Bautista last winter, which now looks like one of the best decisions any GM has ever made.

Ummm, wow. It is crazy to see it there in black and whitegreen. Jose Bautista is ours and you can't have him, even if you're offering Troy Tulowitzki.

Some awesome stuff from Fangraphs commenters, who kept their #6org jokes at bay long enough to make a little bit of sense. Take this hot shot of comment gold from SC2GG:

Considering the number of high value deals this particular GM has made, someone in the business is due for a prettttty good raise, I’d think. Imagine the employee review meeting that AA is going to get:

“What have you accomplished this year?”

“Well, aside from giving the entire country a sense of excitement about baseball that hasn’t existed for 15 yrs, rebuilding the farm system from nearly last to in the top 5, across the board I also saved the team and the company more than $200 million which is more than you paid for the whole team only a few years ago."

Wow, it really makes you think that things in Blue Jays Land might just be okay, doesn't it?

I made a concerted effort to stay neutral and/or non-committal on the Jose Bautista contract. As much fun to have him prove me definitely wrong in every way, I don't think betting against Jose Bautista is a very good idea at all. He proved people much smarter than me wrong last year before proving the laws of physics nearly irrelevant. It is officially time to just enjoy the ride. As if we aren't already.

Reuters image courtesy of Daylife. Make sure you read the entire top 50 series, it is great stuff.