Josh Johnson tells Giants and Padres that they are his first choice

Despite being a central part in the big Marlins deal that happened just a calendar year ago, the Blue Jays decided to decline offering starting pitcher Josh Johnson a qualifying offer at the end of the season. Henry Schulman reported that the 29-year-old free agent told San Francisco Giants and the San Diego Padres that they were "his first choice" because it is close to his home in Las Vegas.

Industry sources tell me FA starter Josh Johnson let the #sfgiants and #padres know early on they were his first choice, close to Vegas home

— Henry Schulman (@hankschulman) November 18, 2013

Josh Johnson was brought in as a front-of-the-rotation starter but was very disappointing, as Tom Dakers described in a season recap. Maybe, in addition to the distance to his home, Johnson prefers the Giants and Padres for their ballparks, which hold in fly balls much better than the Rogers Centre. Johnson gave up 11 homers in five games pitched in Toronto.

After Johnson's season was declared to be over, his agent Matt Sosnick told the media that he expects his pitcher to get "a base of $10 million or above" and that Johnson was not interested in a multi-year contract at this point. Johnson felt, at that point at least, that he had "unfinished business" in Toronto. Of course, Johnson had not ruled out returning to the Blue Jays, only that he would prefer to move back to the National League and into large parks.

Back on October 1 we polled readers on whether they would like to see the Blue Jays to re-sign Josh Johnson, and 82% of readers said "Yes". Let's do a re-poll.