The juggernaut that was the Toronto Blue Jays' offense was one of the best stories of the 2015 season. In fact, it was one I wrote about in this very space, saying a case can be made for it being the best offense of this century. Anytime a club reaches such historic offensive heights, there usually are surprise contributors, Chris Colabello and Devon Travis (when healthy) in the Jays' case. There are also go-to heavyweights in place, such as Toronto's three-headed monster of MVP Josh Donaldson, Edwin Encarnacion and Jose Bautista.
Encarnacion and Bautista have been Toronto bellwethers for quite a while now, and the club's investment in both has paid off handsomely. Both will play the final year of six-year contracts in 2016, with Encarnacion being paid $10 million and Bautista $14 million in deals that guaranteed them totals of $43 million and $78 million, respectively. The Jays have been handsomely repaid with 18.8 WAR from Encarnacion and 32.6 WAR from Bautista, bargain rates of $2.3 million and $2.4 million per WAR. Not too shabby.
Both of these stalwarts are slated to hit the free-agent market together at the end of the 2016 season, and the Jays have indicated an early willingness to keep both players around for the long term. There are enough underlying subplots here that will make this courtship one of the more intriguing off-field storylines to follow this season. Today we look at those.