Yeah good point, it takes 2 to tango. Though more of it is on the owners for me. No one is forcing the owners to hire GMs to hand out these ridiculous contracts. Players cannot make ridiculous money if it isnt originally offered to them by the owners.
Realistically players arent going to refuse more money, but owners can adjust what they are willing to offer. Free market capitalism is how most owners got rich, and it is why owners lose more of "their" money to the players by the way of other owners outbidding each other.
Problem is that if the owners collectively adjust what they're willing to offer people will scream 'collusion'. And if they don't do it collectively then it only takes one idiot panicking and opening the money vault to put things back where they are. It's free market capitalism but it's a weird version in a closed biome where the franchises operate like competitors in one aspect of the business when the reality is that they are co-existing partner departments (or, as the name suggests, franchises) of an over-arching collective unit. So instead of making financially optimal decisions like a real business, they'll cut off their noses to spite their faces, forking out dumb contracts so that someone else doesn't get a guy and then turning around and realizing that the dumb contract they handed out is going to make it harder for them to operate going forward.
Of course the players do the same thing. They take the biggest deals they can because they're gonna get theirs, but when the org hits its budget ceiling and has to start bleeding pricey talent at other positions to keep themselves on track they act disheartened and offended that the team isn't just throwing more money at the problem and can't fathom how any of this happened while still cashing their sweet, sweet giant novelty paycheques.
I laugh at the concept of Valera "losing" his roster spot. He sucks. He probably shouldn't be here to begin with. And for both of them it comes down to a simple truth: If they wanted to stick around they had to be better. Valera never was and McGuire's brief flirtation with being good was likely the aberration and not anything real.
That infamous inning against the Yankees where Grilli gave up 4 homers to the Yankees definitely played a role in his placement. I recall him being relatively solid in 2016 but then the wheels fell off the next season before he was DFA'd and ended up in Texas and had that run-in with Stanton.
As for Jo-Jo, I am not sure how we all made it through that 2011 season. Juan Rivera, Corey Patterson, Jo-Jo, Kyle DraBBek, Jayson Nix, and Jon Rauch all had plenty of playing time and we even got cameos from Briant Tallet and Will Ledezma. What a season that was.
I actually have some weirdly fond memories of the car-wreck late 00s/early 10s teams.
And as for Grilli:
He had a total WPA of -1.38 in 62.2 career Blue Jays innings
Most of that negative value came from -
September 26, 2016 vs NYY (-0.77): faced 5 batters, got 1 out, surrendered 4 hits and 4 runs including 2 HR. He entered in the top of the 9th with a 3-2 lead and left with the score 5-3 before Barnes gave up a single that scored the last runner Grilli had left on base.
April 20, 2017 vs Bos (-0.46): faced 6 batters, got 2 out and gave up 3 runs (all earned) on 2 hits and 2 walks, taking a game that was 1-1 in the top of the 10th and leaving it at 4-1 before Danny Barnes came in for the final out and the Jays proceeded to go 1-2-3 in the bottom of the inning to lose.
June 23, 2017 @ KCR (-0.79): In his final game with the Blue Jays he came on in the 9th after Ryan Tepera and Aaron Loup both failed to close things out. With runners on 1st and 3rd and the score 4-3 Jays he gave up a 2-run double to Whit Merrifield, taking the blown save and the loss.
Shockingly the Yankee 4-HR drubbing outing was only worth -0.07 WPA. It becomes less shocking when you look at the context though, because the Jays were already down 3-0 in the 8th inning when Grilli got lit up. He left at 7-0 but the damage was done before that (and the Jays would go on to lose the game by that 7-0 score without another Jays batter reaching base over the last two innings and only having a collective 3 hits before that point
