After losing fellow All-Star Edwin Encarnacion to the Cleveland Indians, it looks like the Toronto Blue Jays have at least kept one of their core power hitters.
Various reports on Tuesday indicate that Toronto has re-signed to a deal with $18 million guaranteed that could reach a full value of $60 million with multiple mutual options. It's a surprising move, especially considering Bautista seemed destined to follow Encarnacion to Cleveland just a few short days ago.
From a fantasy perspective, this is absolutely huge.
Bautista is coming off a down season in Toronto, posting seven-year lows in average (.234), homers (22) and RBI (69). He also just turned 36 years old. Those are the red flags for a guy that is seemingly on the downside of his career.
The good news here is that Bautista has historically dominated at the plate at home. Over the course of his career, the six-time All-Star has posted a .272 average with 136 homers in 526 games at the Rogers Center. That's an average of a homer every 3.9 games. For comparison's sake, he's averaging a homer per every six games away from Toronto during his career.
Bautista is no longer an elite-level fantasy play. That was magnified last season. But his best chance of making a strong impact in the fake baseball world was remaining in Toronto. This came to fruition on Tuesday.