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Veteran Reliever Stands on Demand
October 6, 2061 | Forever Land | The last thing any baseball team needs going into a tough SPET series with Trashville in Nashville is controversy, but controversy they have. At least to an extent. In this case it's coming from fan favorite reliever Shea Valance, who at 35-years-old is in the last year of a front-loaded $17M contract that now pays him $2.5M. If his public statements are to be believed, he would like to stay on the atoll, but would like to be paid upward of $5M a season for at least three years. It's a request he seems uninterested in budging on, though his public statements suggest he's relying on some help from the fan base.
"It's really up to them," Valance said after running on the off-day between series. "My agent has sent them the numbers. I'd love to be back."
If this were the 32-year-old Valance, one suspects the team would already have him locked up. But this is not the 32-year-old Valance. He's lost four ticks on the fastball over the past calendar year, which hasn't yet shown up in his K-rate, but has resulted in the right-hander being clubbed for homers at twice the rate. His ERA is up. His opponent's OPS rate is up. His FIP-, while still a slice better than league average, is also up. He's still tough on righthanders, but lefty bats are tearing him up.
All total, those are all strong indicators of why the Krill haven't yet bitten on his offer.
Some are speculating that Valance's hard-tack position on negotiations is related to the fact that with the arrival of Winston Morris and Enrique Villarreal, and the emergence of Enrique Aguilar as a top-flight bullen arm (until September, anyway), he's also lost his primary role as closer and set-up man, and as a result has seen his save totals drop from a career high 42 in 2059, to 24 last season, and only 1 in 2061.
Fans are responding with an email campaign and signs at the ballpark, but we're not sure it's going to make a difference.
October 6, 2061 | Forever Land | The last thing any baseball team needs going into a tough SPET series with Trashville in Nashville is controversy, but controversy they have. At least to an extent. In this case it's coming from fan favorite reliever Shea Valance, who at 35-years-old is in the last year of a front-loaded $17M contract that now pays him $2.5M. If his public statements are to be believed, he would like to stay on the atoll, but would like to be paid upward of $5M a season for at least three years. It's a request he seems uninterested in budging on, though his public statements suggest he's relying on some help from the fan base.
"It's really up to them," Valance said after running on the off-day between series. "My agent has sent them the numbers. I'd love to be back."
If this were the 32-year-old Valance, one suspects the team would already have him locked up. But this is not the 32-year-old Valance. He's lost four ticks on the fastball over the past calendar year, which hasn't yet shown up in his K-rate, but has resulted in the right-hander being clubbed for homers at twice the rate. His ERA is up. His opponent's OPS rate is up. His FIP-, while still a slice better than league average, is also up. He's still tough on righthanders, but lefty bats are tearing him up.
All total, those are all strong indicators of why the Krill haven't yet bitten on his offer.
Some are speculating that Valance's hard-tack position on negotiations is related to the fact that with the arrival of Winston Morris and Enrique Villarreal, and the emergence of Enrique Aguilar as a top-flight bullen arm (until September, anyway), he's also lost his primary role as closer and set-up man, and as a result has seen his save totals drop from a career high 42 in 2059, to 24 last season, and only 1 in 2061.
Fans are responding with an email campaign and signs at the ballpark, but we're not sure it's going to make a difference.
