It's almost impossible to separate Jose Bautista from all of the personality window-dressing. The most famous bat flip ever -- or infamous, depending on your preference. The Rougned Odor wallop. The near-constant debates with home plate umpires over the strike zone. Baltimore Orioles general manager Dan Duquette shocked his peers with his blunt assessment of why Baltimore would not pursue Bautista: "Our fans don’t like Jose Bautista, with good reason." He was telling the truth. If you can somehow ignore all of that and just focus on what Bautista provides in offensive production, "he's still a beast," mentioned one evaluator recently. Bautista remains an on-base percentage machine, consistently ranking among the best in reaching base. His year-to-year ranking in that category in recent seasons among all MLB hitters: 2013: Ninth
2014: Third
2015: 12th
2016: 28th (among players with at least 400 plate appearances)
|