Hence I specified "depending on the length." His stable 120ish wRC+ bat makes him a solid asset though, if his defense keeps up for several years he should make up for the contract.
Not as an actual skill, it's just harder / takes longer to evaluate. There's enough of a sample to determine that he's obviously a very high quality defender.
This is probably ideal, yeah. I've previously proposed piggybacking, but if it came down to it, just flat out moving him to a relief role would be good in my books as well.
Oh for f***'s sake please don't do this. Just let everyone enjoy his coming into usefulness without being stupid, and snobby about said stupidity.
Lol you'd be a great drug sniffing dog.
Actually, we probably would've signed Shields with the savings and been much better off. But there's no usefulness and productivity in this sort of analysis. This sort of thing happens all the time in sports.