Dodgers - Re-signed Juan Rivera

Los Angeles Dodgers - Signed OF Juan Rivera to a 1-year, $4.5 million contract with club option for 1-year, $3.5 million.

This is a signing that makes me want to take a paint tutorial (Billy is pretty loyal to the Royals though and might not be available). Words will have to be enough.

Honestly though this isn’t an objectively terrible signing. I can’t readily identify 60 better corner outfielders, so he’s (arguably) playing on merit. He isn’t horrendously overpaid and there’s no long-term commitment. He’s a bad regular but a pretty decent backup corner outfielder (well offensively at any rate. He’s not much of a defensive player, though he’s hardly a brutally bad one)—particularly if you can afford to platoon him.(his splits last year are not an ability level, but he is a career .289/.335/.495 and that has some value if you can spare a roster spot)

My specific problem with the signing is that there’s no reason to do it. Yes, as I said he’s arguably playing on merit, but you’d really like another team to have (say) the 28th best starting left fielder. He has no real up-side and a bad year from a player of Rivera’s talent level can be pretty brutal. As a group, third tier players are terrible signings.

And there’s no need to move aggressively on Juan Rivera. There’s never any shortage of players in the general range of ability of Juan Rivera. Assuming somebody snaps Rivera up, any decent organization ought to be able to come up with a reasonable facsimile.  Your manager might have to sort through a bunch of NRIs, but that’s part of his job.