Kudos to Atkins for getting off that deal. I’ll be honest, when they first signed it I thought that it was an indication that this front office might not be that good.
Cost control of guys at Grichuks well established level just isn’t that important. You don’t need to lock down that calibre of player pretty much ever. Yea, technically if he’s a 2WARish player that’s surplus value but good teams find those players in their own system and pay them 700k. They certainly don’t sign them to 5 year deals pretty much ever.
Being able to extricate yourself from that and admit a mistake is good though. It shows the ability to grow rather than double down.