Monday, May 28, 2012

Bautista-gate!

Troy, NY: Haymaker fans made a unified, "Wha, Wha, What?!?" this past week when news surfaced that the slugging Jose Bautista was traded for Edwin Encarnacion and a VFS round 1 pick. "He just didn't fit into our long term plans," said GM Ken Anderson, "We want to build our team around Josh (Hamilton), Pablo (Sandoval) and Madison Bumgarner. We also want to build a long term competitive team and we thought this was the best way to keep that plan in action." Troy fans have been livid, who thought the team was a playoff lock before the trade. Even Bautista himself was quoted in another news source as saying that the Haymaker GM did not have faith in him. "Bautista is a grown man and knows how this game works," said the GM, "He was productive when he was here, and if he is worried about who has faith in him them maybe it was best that he was moved on." There have been other fairly public hints (Here) that Bautista was on the market from as early as January; when news surfaced that he was being shopped. It seemed the GM has had his doubts for some time, maybe he was worried about the personalities of Hamilton and Bautista over the long term. We may never know. Now Troy fans will have to finish out the season without one of the most exciting bats in the game. Jose Bautista, who helped bring the Haymakers their first championship appearance in 2011, was drafted in the 6th round of the 2010 draft. After a season playing part time, a hitch was fixed in his swing and Bautista exploded with 44 homeruns and 123 RBI's in 2011. He was hitting .313 with 15 homeruns and 36 RBI's at the time of the trade.

No comments: