From the story RA: We made very competitive offers to a couple pitchers, and maybe even better offers than what players signed for. You get into a situation when you're coming off of two 90-plus loss seasons - some pitchers, and to their credit they are looking to land in a place where they'll get a chance to win, and some teams can just offer that and a player will look at it and believe it moreso than when we say "Hey, we're trying to win, too." And Old Nursie was villified and mocked for even saying that it was a disctinct possibility in the club's problem in signnig free agents.