Blue Jays: Smoak and Bautista outplaying Encarnacion

The Blue Jays had plenty of important decisions to make this offseason, including whether or not to bring back Jose Bautista and Edwin Encarnacion, both of whom were free agents. So far, those decisions have worked out for the Blue Jays’ brass.

The season is still somewhat early, however, Thursday marks the 1/3 point of the calendar for the Blue Jays as they’ll play their 54th game of the 2017 season. They’ll open up a 4 game set against the AL East leading New York Yankees, with an opportunity to close the gap on the 5.5 game lead currently held by the Bronx Bombers.

As recently as 3 weeks ago, the season looked like a lost one for the Blue Jays, as they began the season at a dreadful 1-9 start in their first ten, and looked as though they’d dug a hole that may be too difficult to get out of. My how things can change in a hurry in baseball.

There are plenty of reasons for the Blue Jays turnaround, and several of them have come from unexpected sources. Jose Bautista was atrocious in April, leaving some fans to wonder if it was a mistake to bring him back this season. After getting off to a snail’s pace, the 2-time MLB home run champ was a different hitter in May, finishing the month with a .317/.412/.644 slash line to go along with his 9 home runs and 21 RBI. This after he finished the opening month with a .132 batting average and just a single long ball.

One of the other pleasant surprises in Toronto has been the play of Justin Smoak, who is playing the best baseball of his career thus far in 2017. The switch-hitting first baseman looked like he might even get cut in spring training, and would have had the fanbase been responsible for the decision.

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He’s rewarded the Blue Jays’ patience with a slash line of .276/.344/.541 with 12 home runs and 34 RBI. Given that we’re at the one-third pole of the season, if you triple Smoak’s numbers you’re looking at 36 home runs and 102 RBI, all from a player making a mere 4 million this season.

And that brings me to my major point here, and that’s the tepid start from our lost slugger, Edwin Encarnacion. At the beginning of the offseason, it was largely expected that the Blue Jays would pursue EE and allow Bautista to leave in free agency. Based on the reported actions of the Blue Jays’ front office, it appears that was in fact the strategy they used early in free agency, offering Encarnacion a reported 4 year, 80 million dollar deal before he hit the open market, and waiting until much later to offer Bautista a deal, and only when it was clear that the team was moving on from the former.

We all know how it played out by now, with the Blue Jays signing both Kendrys Morales and Steve Pearce, and Encarnacion eventually inking a 3 year deal with an option to head to Cleveland, the same team that eliminated the Blue Jays from last year’s playoffs.

https://twitter.com/josepintoj/status/869377698933518337

That said, so far the way things played out has worked in the Blue Jays’ favour in a big way. Encarnacion hasn’t been himself thus far in Cleveland, slashing .234/.349/.418 with 10 home runs and just 22 RBI thus far. He’s been asked to play at first base a fair amount, and his dWAR sits at -0.6, dragging his overall WAR down to -0.3. For a 20 million average annual salary, Cleveland had hoped for much more from their new slugger.

Chances are they’ll eventually get just that, as Encarnacion is one of the streakiest hitters in baseball, and is due to eventually find his stroke and rattle off a red-hot month in his new uniform. However, he hasn’t lived up to his contract at all thus far, which is worth taking note of.

The Blue Jays invested 18 million in Jose Bautista, which also includes mutual options for additional seasons, and 8.25 million in Justin Smoak for a two year extension. These things are never that simple, but the Blue Jays are paying just a little over 2 million more for their productive pair, as opposed to what they would have been shelling out for Encarnacion. Call that a win thus far.

Perhaps “Edwing” would have performed better as a Blue Jay, and chances are he’ll still turn things around in a major way in Cleveland (I even hope he does, you can’t help but love that guy), but it’s gotta be a solid affirmation for the Blue Jays’ brass to see things working out this way thus far. They gambled on Smoak and it’s paid off in a big way, and they’ve saved a tremendous amount of payroll as a result.

Next: Blue Jays: Should Sanchez go back to the bullpen?

As it turns out, we the fans get it wrong sometimes, and I’ll be the first to admit that I never expected Smoak to perform like this. Sometimes, it’s good to be wrong.