Jose Bautista is on the move again. On Tuesday afternoon, minutes before their window to complete a waiver-period trade expired, the Mets and Phillies agreed to a deal that will send Joey Bats from the NL East’s fourth-place team to it’s second-place one. In exchange, the Mets, who signed the 37-year-old outfielder on May 22 after he was released by the Braves, will receive either a player to be named later or cash, preferably in unmarked bills.

After nine-plus seasons with the Blue Jays — highlighted by six All-Star appearances, two home run titles, the team’s first two trips to the postseason since their 1992 and ’93 World Series wins, and the franchise’s most iconic hit since Joe Carter’s — Bautista found himself out of work this past winter. Not until April did he sign a minor league deal with the Braves, for whom he played just 12 games, hitting .143/.250/.343 with two homers in 40 plate appearances before being released. Two days later, and less than a week after losing both Yoenis Cespedes and Juan Lagares to injuries, the Mets picked him up. Between the absences of those two players — now out for the season due to foot surgeries — plus injuries to Jay Bruce and Todd Frazier and a dearth of better ideas, the team gave Bautista 302 plate appearances, in which he hit a modest .204/.351/.367 with nine homers, a 104 wRC+, and 0.4 WAR. He was very hot in June (.250/.434/.536, 161 wRC+), but otherwise, not so much:

Between his Atlanta and New York stints, Bautista is walking in 16.4% of his plate appearances, a rate in line with his heyday, but both his 11.1% swinging strike rate and 28.7% strikeout rate represent career highs. His Statcast numbers look considerably better than last year and suggest he’s been a bit unlucky:

On the other hand, Bautista is pulling the ball on 50.8% of his balls in play, a bit above his career rate (47.2%), and a frequency that’s easily countered by infield shifts. Both his 47 wRC+ against those shifts and his .253 BABIP overall are in the general vicinity of his recent body of work, and are contributing to a batting average that’s flirting with the Mendoza Line.

Losers of 19 out of 36 games since the All-Star break, the Phillies (70-61 overall) are 3.5 games behind the Braves in the NL East and 2.5 back in the wild card race. Their playoff odds have fallen from 46.8% to 40.3% in that span. Their second-half struggles have more to do with deteriorating run prevention than sagging offense; their 94 wRC+ since the break is actually three points better than it was prior. The production they’ve been receiving from the three positions where Bautista has taken 63 of his 66 starts this year (right field, left field, and third base) has improved from the first half to the second: right fielder Nick Williams‘ wRC+ has risen from 102 to 119, left fielder Rhys Hoskins‘ from 122 to 159, and third baseman Maikel Franco’s from 102 to 123. Their clearest need for an upgrade in a role that Bautista can fill is as a pinch-hitter, as theirs have batted just .202/.266/.331 for a 59 wRC+, the league’s second-lowest mark.

In all, the addition of Bautista is a minor move, but that doesn’t mean it wasn’t worth making. On a team with few position players who have tasted the postseason (Asdrubal Cabrera, Wilson Ramos, Carlos Santana), they’ve added another, a guy who might have a few big hits left in that bat.

Oh, and if you’re wondering, according to the Elias Sports Bureau, Bautista — who as a rookie in 2004 played for four different major league teams — is now the third player to play for three teams within the same division in the same season, after Bob Reynolds (Orioles, Tigers, and Indians, oh my!) in 1975 and Kelly Johnson (Yankees, Red Sox, and Orioles) in 2014.