Canadian Baseball Hall of Fame 2025 Inductees: Jose Bautista

Bautista came over to the Blue Jays from the Pirates in a 2008 trade that was about as unassuming as they come, with a player to be named later (revealed to be Robinzon Diaz at a later date) going the other way. It’s probably fair to say that the te am had no idea just how big of a trade it would end up being.

After bouncing around three different organizations, Bautista had a couple of respectable, albeit unspectacular, years with the Pirates, producing a .755 OPS in 2006 and a .753 mark in 2007. In his first full year in Toronto in 2009, he maintained a similar production level, showing few signs that he would truly bust out the following year.

In 2010, Bautista became ‘Joey Bats’, blasting an MLB-best 54 home runs and driving in 124. He quickly became one of the most feared hitters in the league, hitting in the heart of the Blue Jays‘ order and helping the club return to relevance over parts of 10 seasons. Over his Blue Jays career, Bautista hit 288 home runs while producing an .878 OPS across 1235 games. The Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic native went to six straight All-Star games from 2010-2015, finishing in the top ten in MVP voting four times, and was recently inducted into the organization’s Level of Excellence.

Besides posting prodigious power numbers in his time in Toronto, he is remembered by most for one single moment.

Bautista’s bat flip after hitting a late-inning, go-ahead home run against the Texas Rangers in Game #5 of the 2015 ALDS will forever live in Blue Jays lore. Toronto fans had waited a long time to see playoff baseball in Ontario’s capital, with their last appearance coming in their World Series-winning season of 1993. Bautista’s shot put an exclamation point on the series and sent them off to the ALCS. Even though they would go on to lose to the Royals in six games, nobody will ever forget Bautista’s big moment, which continues to make the rounds in highlight reels today.

Bautista joins several other non-Canadian Blue Jays players to be inducted into the Hall of Fame, like Roy Halladay, Carlos Delgado, and George Bell. All of these men proved to be long-time fan favourites that made their mark on Canadian baseball through their quality play and efforts in the community.