2063.6 River Monsters Dig Up Groves

[ae37jr]

River Monsters Dig Up Groves

On a historic day in which BBA teams around the league are rolling out team news about their big fancy "Ferrari" free agent signings. Here comes the 'ole River Monsters pulling up in a beat up Nissan Versa. The team has announced it has come to terms with free agent pitcher Brian Groves. Yup, that Brian Groves. The 35 year old injury prone journeyman who lacks drive. The official terms of the deal are 6 years.... 6 years? We'll save that part to the end. Let's talk about the player first.

There is nothing fancy about Brian Groves. He's a plain Jane 50 rated relief pitcher. His 6 stuff, 5 control, 7 rated fastball and slider are all mid. His 7 movement is kind of exciting. But it's only against RHB. So what do we like about Groves? He's been consistently a semi decent pitcher. He has a career ERA+ of 133. Just a guy that will give you 50-60 solid innings a season. Another "guy" to fill out the bullpen.

The River Monsters pen appears to be taking shape. Jorge Duran and Andres Gonzales return as the closer/stopper duo. Jorge Quinones will join Groves in middle relief. One of Takuda/Yamashita/Flores will be the long man. That leaves another 2-3 spots up in the air. Henry Wemp, Antonio Garcia, and Ernesto Valadez all have options and figure to be "next man up" when Takuda/Yamashita/Groves gets injured. We also want to leave some wiggle room for prospects such as Luis Gonzales, Wayne Humphries, and Jose Lopez to hopefully force the teams hand at some point. It's not the most talented pen in the league. but it's got enough quality arms that we should be able to patch something together. Best of all.. they are cheap.

I guess we need to address the contract. It's essentially a one year deal worth $750k. With some small risk possible. That's how we are viewing it at least. There is an opt out after year one where Groves will then need to decided upon a 3 year contract worth $750k or take the $150k buyout and hope he can get something higher than $600k

How bad does Groves self esteem need to be to not opt out of that? I mean really. "Nah, I'm good. I don't want to bet on myself. I'll take the $100K over league minimum. Well... technically he'd be opting out of $2.25k. I guess that's where the logic of accepting this deal comes in. But I still feel that baring some freak farm accident, he'll opt out.

What if he doesn't? That probably means he either got a CEI or lumped into the abyss. The probability of those outcomes are not super high, but possible. In which case we can buyout the deal and pretend we just signed him to a one year $4 mil deal. Only we can spread it over multiple seasons. We tried our best to mitigate the risk even further by offering him the "6 year split" contract that we have given to several fringe players in recent years. But Groves wouldn't sign the magical 6 year league min deal.

The River Monsters have been mulling over how to improve a pitching staff that they don't feel is "Championship Quality". They will continue to monitor the free agent and trade markets in their quest for the Monty.

[RT60]

Nice pickup!

[RonCo]

Inventive is Alan's middle name.

[Dington]

Inventive is Alan's middle name.

I just call him lil bro.