The Toronto Blue Jays Made Edwin Encarnacion An Offer, And Surprise! It Wasn't Good Enough
That headline isn’t to make Edwin Encarnacion sound like a money-hungry egomaniac. As far as I know, he’s not. If you’re a Blue Jays fan, then you know it’s about the Blue Jays organization.
Of course they didn’t fucking make an offer that was good enough. They never do. Last week, I compared this situation to what went down with Johnny Damon and the Red Sox when Damon became a free agent after the 2005 season. Would the Red Sox have been happy to have had Damon back? Sure. But for the money he wanted? Nope, all set. So, the Red Sox offered him just enough to make it look like they tried, knowing that somebody else was going to outbid them. That somebody, as we all know, was the New York Yankees. The Red Sox’s plan was to save face, save money, and have the fans never question it. That all backfired, just like this Blue Jays/Encarnacion situation will if they don’t re-sign him.
Yeah, the Blue Jays want Encarnacion back. Who wouldn’t want a 40-homer guy in their lineup? But for his asking price of 5 years and $125 million? They’re not going to pay him that. Honestly, at that asking price, I don’t even blame them. But that’s why you negotiate. Toronto remains Encarnacion’s first choice, but even he’s gotta know that they’re not sniffing that asking price, especially after how they handled their negotiations this past spring. Encarnacion himself publicly admitted how disappointed he was with how those negotiations went.
Encarnacion’s agent did an interview with Sportsnet 590, which was summed up by MLBTR.
The Blue Jays are still at the top of the list of free agent slugger Edwin Encarnacion, agent Paul Kinzer said in an appearance on Sportsnet 590 (audio available here). Toronto has made an offer, though it “wasn’t quite where [Encarnacion’s camp] wanted to be,” and it seems that there’s still some hope of a reunion. There are other suitors, but Kinzer notes that Encarnacion will weigh matters beyond the pure contract and that “there’s a short list of where he would go to.” Kinzer noted that the market has thrown some “curves” thus far. The Red Sox have been somewhat less aggressive than had been expected, the agent acknowledged, though he noted that some unexpected teams have been in talks. While it seems there’s a lot of ground still to cover, Kinzer suggested that a signing could come together by the start of the Winter Meetings — and might well take place sooner.
I honestly don’t know why there’s any hope of a reunion on Encarnacion’s side of things. I get that there might be some optimism in knowing that the Red Sox aren’t really as interested as everyone thought that they’d be, so that takes a major player, and possibly the favorite, out of the sweepstakes, but SOMEbody will outbid the Blue Jays. And that’s honestly a fucking shame if that’s what ends up happening.
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By the sounds of it, Jose Bautista is as good as gone, and I don’t know how the Blue Jays can look their fan base in the eye if they don’t bring at least one of those two players back. Encarnacion makes the most sense to invest in, and if they can’t pony up the cash to bring him back, then the honeymoon between all of the Blue Jays fans who hopped on the bandwagon last summer and their new favorite team is going to be over, or at least it should be. They might be too new to be that cynical towards an ownership group that they haven’t really seen in action yet.
It’s not even that the team is doomed without Encarnacion and Bautista. They’re still a pretty good team — not nearly AS good, but still pretty good. It’s more of the message that the ownership is sending to their fans. You’ve finally struck gold with a group of players in Toronto, back-to-back appearances in the ALCS, and the team is as popular as they’ve ever been. To half-ass your attempt in bringing Encarnacion back would be such a slap in the face to the fans who have supported this team since they became relevant again.