Orioles won't sign Jose Bautista because their fans don't like him

Most baseball teams treat undesirable free agents they same way you might treat a failing relationship. When it’s clear things aren’t going to work out, you offer up some bland reasoning and try and break things off cleanly. If you’re lucky, that softens the blow and both sides are able to walk away with their dignity intact.

Well, we found out Tuesday that the Baltimore Orioles are the spiteful ex of baseball. After meeting with Jose Bautisa’s camp Tuesday, the Orioles offered up a cold-blooded reason for passing on the outfielder.

Orioles prefer to keep draft, too, but to explain why Bautista doesn’t fit, they told JB camp: O’s fans just don’t like him

— Jon Heyman (@JonHeyman) December 7, 2016

Ouch. That has to hurt. And while you would think Bautista is used to that type of thing, it’s pretty brutal that the Orioles came out and said it to him.

It’s also an incredibly dumb way to run your franchise. Look, we get that Bautista’s antics rub a lot of people the wrong way. His incredible postseason bat-flip caused plenty of controversy, and led to one of the most intense baseball brawls we’ve seen in years. Opposing fans hate that he shows emotion and celebrates big moments. And they hate that he constantly complains about the strike zone.

Toronto Blue Jays fans, however, seem to love him. That’s because Jose Bautista is an incredibly good player who can still perform on the field. When he’s constantly clobbering balls over the left field wall, you tend to ignore all the other stuff because he’s helping you win games.

Sure, some Orioles fans would be mad about the signing at first, but they would likely come around the instant Bautista hit his first walk-off home run with the club. Fans like winning games far more than holding grudges.

There are legitimate reasons for Baltimore to pass on Bautista too. He’s now 36 years old and coming off a season in which he hit .243/.366/.452. He also would cost the team a draft pick.

Knowing all that, the team could have offered up the usual excuse and said “there wasn’t a fit,” or that the “money didn’t add up.” Instead, they decided to go scorched Earth, ensuring this was not going to be an amiable breakup.

Bautista hasn’t responded to all this just yet, possibly because he’s too busy listening to Dashboard Confessional, staring at the Orioles’ Facebook page and wistfully thinking about what could have been.