SBN Winter Meetings: U-Turn for the Nasty Hook

Just when you thought that the front office of the Fake Reds couldn't possibly be any dumber, we go and do this...AND TOTALLY REDEEM OURSELVES!

The Fake Reds opted against extending a 1 year, $14.1 million Qualifying Offer to Bronson Arroyo at the beginning of the simulation, and we fully expected him to seek a multi-year contract somewhere far from the banks of the Ohio River, but as other starting pitchers signed elsewhere and the market evolved, there sat ol' Saturn Nuts right before us with a sad puppy dog face, amazing hair, and no concrete offer from any of our Fake competitors.

So we picked him back up, gave him a hug, and signed him to a 1 year, $9 million deal with a club option for another year at $10 million that has just a $1 million buyout.  We're all pretty happy about it, too.

Arroyo will fit right in to the fake starting rotation in Cincinnati just as he has for the better part of the last decade, joining the likes of Johnny Cueto, Mat Latos, Homer Bailey, and Mike Leake, and likely keeping Aroldis Chapman as a shutdown reliever at the back end of the bullpen for another season.  That is, of course, until we change our minds again after finding another bargain out there to scoop up.

Which reminds me...remember Manny Parra, the reclamation project from 2013 who saw the lights turn on as a reliever for the first time while on just a 1 year, $1 million deal?  Well, apparently we're the only ones who remembered, and we snapped him up for less than he made last year.  Parra will get 1 year and $800K thanks to some master negotiation from BK, and he'll hop right into the bullpen, kick ass, and take names.

We're right up against our budget at this point, so we're getting a bit creative (read: desperate), but thankfully we've managed to nab our biggest needs.  Stay tuned, though, as our sim still has almost 22 more hours to shake & bake...