Major League Ready

You need to read more carefully. Carry over has nothing to do with the point. There are other issue with your post but the most meaningful is that those of you who take this position don't seem to understand such a model would actually put below average revenue teams at an even bigger disadvantage. The only thing that would change under your proposed operating model is the players would make even more and teams with less than average income would have an even larger disadvantage because the large market teams make considerably more profit which when redistributed would obviously create an even bigger disparity in payroll expenditures.

Two things. The construction of Atlanta, Colorado, Tampa, Oakland in terms of impact players (3WAR or higher) is absolutely dominated by players that were drafted or acquired in trade before becoming established. Obviously, supplementing though any other means is advisable but the impact of trades for established players or FAs has been very modest. The point is the constant complaining about a practice with modest impact is not exactly enlightened. Things that really matter get a fraction of the attention. The other thing is timing. You and others always insist it must be done NOW. Most fans refuse to see this through the lens of a business. There are 4 potential future states. 1) The FA pans out and the rest of the team produces at a level where the addition of the FA results in enough success to recoup the investment in that player. 2) The FA pans out but the rest of the team does not produce at a level where the addition of the FA results in enough success to recoup the investment in that player. 3) The FA does not produce and the rest of the team produces at a high level. 4) The FA does not produce and the rest of the team also fails. The reason teams wait until they have significant confidence is that the odds of #1 are probably 2:1 against for just the first part of the scenario that the player performs at a high level. Their willingness to take those odds is going to be very low if the odds of the 2nd part of that scenario are not high. If the odds of part 1 are .333 and the odds of part 2 are .333, the overall odds of success are 11%. .333 is probably optimistic in terms of the rest of this team. Business don’t spend 10s of millions on those odds. It’s bad from both a business perspective and roster building perspective. The typical response here is so what it’s just money but that does not account for the inability to invest if the remainder of the team improves. In other words, FAs are always a bad bet but a bet that makes much more sense when the team has proven to be ready to contend.

I can't tell you how much I would enjoy meeting you in a board room.

How am I exaggerating? I used hard fact. The very top paid FAs all failed from last year. Is this or is this not accurate. You have tried to make the argument they should build through FA and trading for established players because they have failed at developing talent. In other words, the previous regime failed to successfully implement the practices most likely to succeed so let's take a crack at following a path that is patently proven not to work for teams with average or less revenue. The data is overwhelming in terms of the acquisition model that has produced playoff teams or even 90 win teams like the Rays that did not make the playoffs. You have consistently ignore hard data and focus on anecdotes that might support your unwavering position the answer is spending just as the OP did here when he ignored the fact that the most successful teams in terms of wins increase spent virtually nothing on FAs. I have asked you on several occasions to show me examples of successful teams with average or below average revenue where FAs and/or established high performing players were acquired via trade. If you look at these teams, and I have provided hard fact previously, the majority of the WAR is produced by players acquired as prospects. The number of impact players acquired through trade while still prospects grossly outnumber the players acquired after becoming established. The point being there is a lot of focus and insistence on spending focused practices which history clearly shows to be a bad bet. It's also very obvious that the teams have gained a firm of the relative merit of free building through free agency. Do you suppose it's the league that does not understand or are TDers holding on to some outdated principals?

Just about any team could improve slightly if the standard is replacing the worst player on the team with a high price FA in hindsight. However, the context of your text which prompted by reply was that the Twins could make a significant difference if they were willing to spend a little more and were a little smarter. The examples I provided were the most highly regarded FAs on the market and the same players that many here said were no brainers. I also asked you to define a little and the magnitude of the impact. The facts (history) is quite clear that FA productivity is around 9M/WAR. A little spending is highly unlikely to move the needle anywhere near what the Twins need to succeed. The real disconnect is that fans have absolutely no problem with players treating baseball as a business but many refuse to accept the business that is the Minnesota Twins acting like a business. The fact is that if the Twins spent another $25M on free agents, the odds of them recouping that investment are near zero. The odds of recouping even 25% are less than even. Try going into your CEO’s office and suggesting they make a $25M investment with little chance of recouping even a modest portion of the investment.

That's quite vague. How much is a little and what is your suggestion for smarter? What free agents this year would be smarter? The concensus here seems to be we need to get the really high profile guys. Who should they have got last year. Would they have been smarter if they got Darvish? Would Arietta at $25M for 2 WAR been significant? How about the 3rd highest paid SP (Cobb). Is that the kind of smart move that would have moved the needle. How about the top RP. Would they have been smarter had the signed Davis at $17M/yr to produce .9 WAR. How about the next highest paid RP ( Holland). Would his .3 WAR have made a difference? I know there were some Brandon Morrow supporters here. He was the next highest paid. Was his .6 WAR the solution. How about the highest paid position player. Would our FO been smarter had we signed Hosmer and his negative WAR. I guess you could say they would have been smart to sign Cain but signing a FA OFer when your supposed strength is a young outfield with all kinds of upside would require a crystal ball. EVERY business based on probable ROI. I can't blame them for not investing in the highest price RPs. The success of RPs is volatile. Smarter might be converting starters with a specific profile or targeting multi-inning pitchers, call them what you will. It's very easy to say they should be smarter when the failures outweigh the successes by 2:1 or more.

I am not sure I understand your point. Are you suggesting all the Twins need to do is increase revenue by $350M or just spend like teams that produce over twice as much as they do?

I appreciate the effort and the intent to examine the facts. However, there are far to variables associated with team wins to make it a viable measure of the relative impact of free agents. What if a team increased their win total by 10 games last year and their free agent acquisitions but the FAs produce 5 WAR. It does not make sense to say they improved by 10 games as a result of spending. What if the inexpensive free agents produced more WAR than the high price FAs? The spending would have had little impact. You have to quantify which free agents were productive if you want to make this assertion. For example, the Cubs had three significant free agents making an AAV of $10M+. (Darvish / Chatwood / Morrow). They collectively produced .3 WAR. They represent 86% of the $215M. Put another way, they spent $44,167,666 to produce .3 wins. The Phillies improved by 14 games how much impact did their FA spending have. They spent 169.2M or 62.1M AAV for Arietta / Santana / Hunter and Neschek who collective produced 4.9 WAR. Just so happens that’s the same WAR produced by Jed Lowry for $6M. You also can’t look at top spenders without comparing teams who succeeded without spending. Atlanta improved by 18 games and spent a total of 5,550,000 on 7 players. In other words, every one of them would have been labeled “dumpster dives” here. Tampa Bay improved by 10 games and spent a total of 6.5M on free agents. Oakland improved by 21 games. They spent a total of 21.5M at an AAV of 18.5 for 5 players or an average AAv of 3.7M. Again, this would have been deemed dumpster diving here. Anyone still wondering why front offices have become extremely cautious when signing high price FAs? It also makes no sense to evaluate the relative success of a spending strategy for the teams that can easily spend $100M more than the Twins. Such a team can sign a couple BP arms for $25M total and 3 other players at an AAV of $25M and still have the Twins budget left over to pay for 20 players vs 25 so they can spend 25% on the remainder of their roster too. Those teams do not represent a viable blueprint for the Twins.

Great work. There is however one step missing and that's the distinction between trades for established players vs trades for MiLB players or MLB players that have yet to become established. The two trades represent significantly different strategies. The starting rotation for Cleveland you mentioned were all acquired as prospects. This is an absolutely crucial distinction if the purpose of the analysis is the evaluate the role of various acquisition strategies. While it's debatable, I would not use the cumulative WAR for the entire roster. The 1WAR players are not responsible for getting a team to the playoffs.The question is ... How where did the impact players acquired.

Why would you assume their revenue will go up from 2017? It would actually be up 20M from 2017 levels based on your assumption of a $10M/yr increase. Attendance has been dropping every year and suspect it will next year two unless things really come together. They received the BAM money last year so 2018 will be up but it makes no sense to assume 2019 will be higher than last year or even 2017.

I am going to say just two things. The path I am suggesting could and should be altered whenever the team becomes reasonably proven. That could be in June in next year. There is no changing the fact that several players have potential but have not realized it. We can react whenever that happens but pushing all-in on a desperate hope it all comes together is a good way to continue to suck for a very long time. Two, you completely ignored several posts in which I outlined how the successful mid-tier teams have been constructed. There are several examples in just the past two years. Atlanta / Colorado / Arizona / Cleveland / Oakland have all constructed playoff teams by trading for prospects as opposed to trading for established players and drafting of course. There is one high end FA (Greinke) among all of them and two if you want to count Encarnacion. 3 years 55M is not something the Twins would not do and he only contributed 3.3 WAR in his 2 years with Cleveland. We could add the Rays even though they did not make the playoffs but had 90 wins in a tough division. Again no big FAs, no trades for big names and a propensity to cut anyone who's salary increases.

Mike, Our differences are not so much as what but when. The duration of futility is absolutely meaningless in terms defining best practices. This team is chock-full of possibilities. Berrios is the only guy I would say is proven and perhaps rogers. Even Rosario is not reliable in my opinion. He was absolutely horrid the 2nd half last year because he just can't help himself, he has no patients at the plate. Another part of our disagreement is that most posters here insist on counting any trade as an example of that we should trade for established players. The numbers clearly show that trades for prospects or ML players acquired before becoming established. These trades represent the exact opposite strategy. Generally speaking these players were acquired by trading away established players. Where free agents are concerned our difference is that you see no risk if its only money. While I partially agree, available payroll is an acquisition asset just as are prospects or our International bonus pool. Free agents often fail completely or produce very low WAR per # spent. That's the same as a bad trade in terms of losing productivity. Your insistence we should trade for a free agent SP even if we were not yet ready because we would have said SP when we did get good. I thought you might have a point but instead of assuming this is a good idea as you have, I actually took an unbiased look at the data which revealed free agent SPs on 4+ year contracts have been extremely ineffective. Where FAs are concerned there is also the reality of this market and right now this market plus a team that has a very uncertain future. I have always been in on Machado because he is a good fit, stays healthy, and has been a consistent performer. Harper has had one great year and the incremental WAR would not be as high given our depth on the OF. Machaso also improves our defense. Back to the point. Machado and Harper type players are an extreme long-shot in this market. What other position players have any more likelihood of really moving the needle more than Schoop and Cron. The actually got the one offensive player that made sense. The SP market sucked. If the best we can do is Corbin for 6/140 I say pass. Can we trade for a SP? Sure, but you better be willing to give up the farm. This is where we disagree. You would. I would not and the tendency of the league has shifted to a strong inclination to keep elite prospects, even for the large market teams. It's extremely rare. almost unheard of for a mid-market team to give up top 10 types like Lewis / Kirilloff. If we are so fortunate as to have all of the unknowns click, we can make adjustments during the year and we can make adjustments with much better information. Nobody would argue pushing all-in with a low probability hand is a poor strategy in Texas Holdem. It's just flat incompetent when running a MLB franchise. You can't bluff in baseball.

I knew when I started it was a fool's errand. As I have said repeatedly anyone can give anecdotal evidence. I listed ALL of the contributing players so that the relative importance of each kind of acquisition can be measured. If my point was trying to say the Twins should never sign a big name free agent or trade for established players you would have a point. I posted more than once at the end of the season that I though Machado was the kind of big name free agent that makes sense for the Twins. What you and others simply do not understand is that mid-market teams can only afford a Machado if the are effective in DRafting/development and trading for prospects. When you look at all of the examples this is abundantly clear. I listed several example of playoff teams that little or no contribution from high end free agents or players acquired by trade after becoming established. Of course, there have been contributors acquired via FA or after becoming established but the teams generally speaking got to the point of contention via cost effective players and the players you mentioned were a small portion of the WAR. Were they still important? Of course they were but posters here are way to worried about the finishing strategy than actually building the foundation necessary for a lower revenue team to build a contender. You use Greinke as an example. That entire team was drafted or traded for as prospects. Was Greinke important? Absolutely! What so few here seem to understand is that the Twins revenue necessitates a very cost efficient structure for the rest of the team to make such an acquisition feasible.

Anyone interested in another objective view. Let’s look at all of the mid-tier teams that made the playoffs in 2017. I already covered 2018 which very clearly showed the vast majority of the most productive players were acquired as prospects or unproven ML players or drafted. I also covered one of the big market teams (Dodgers). They have shown a strong preference to build through prospects. None of their impact players were high end free agents despite their financial capacity. Now let’s look at the mid-market teams that made the playoffs. This includes, Arizona, Colorado and arguably Houston who has enough significant incremental revenue but certainly not in the same category of the Dodger/Yankees. Of course, the Twins and Indians were the other two mid-tier teams but we already know how they were built. Let’s start with the Diamondbacks. Position Players Paul Goldschmidt - 5.1 WAR - Drafted David Peralta – 3.8 WAR – 1 year deal for $7M A.J. Pollock - 2.5 WAR - Drafted Ketel Marte - 2.5 WAR – acquired after having .4 negative WAR the previous year. Starting Rotation Zack Greinke - 5.1 - FA Zack Godley - 3.5 WAR – Acquired while still in A+. Robbie Ray - 3.2 WAR – Acquired with 28 IP at the MLB level and negative WAR Patrick Corbin – 3 WAR – Acquired while in A+ They only had 1 RP (Bradley) over 1.5 WAR. He was drafted. Summary – It would be accurate to say this team built on trading for prospects and drafting. No doubt Greinke was a big part of the team and if the Twins are one player away I doubt anyone here would object to the Twins signing a “Greinke”. However, let’s keep in mind that the acquisition of all the other cheap talent made it possible to sign Greinke just like Riverbrian points out a flexible roster allows for the signing of Cruz. Of course, it does not hurt the Diamondbacks had just signed a billion dollar TV contract. Let’s finish up the National league with a look at Colorado. Position Players – I included LeMahieu because the Rockies only had 2 players above 3 WAR and he is fairly highly regarded. Ignore him if you wish. Charlie Blackmon - 6.5 WAR - Drafted Nolan Arenado - 5.6 WAR - Drafted DJ LeMahieu - 1.9 WAR – Acquired after his 1t season with the cubs where he had.1 negative WAR. Starting Pitchers – The Rockies only had 1 SP (Gray) with 3+ WAR so I included the others who provided innings. Jon Gray - 3.2 WAR drafted. Only had 110 innings but was effective. German Marquez - 2.4 WAR – Acquired when still at A+. Kyle Freeland - 2.0 WAR – Drafted Relief Pitchers – The Rockies only had 1 RP above 1.5. That was Jake McGee – 2.1 WAR cquired from the Rays in his 2nd year of Arbitration. He received 4.8M which the Rays are highly unlikely to pay for a RP. Another words, his acquisition was very similar to the twins acquiring Morrison or Cron. They did sign Greg Holland on a 1 year $6M deal (bounce back deal) He produced 1.1 WAR. They also got 1.1 WAR from Chris Rusin who was acquired before becoming an established MLB player. He produced the same WAR as Holland for $545K. Summary – Zero trades for established players and no high end free agents. Anyone see some very strong tendencies in how successful mid-tier acquire talent?

Aaron Judge - 5.5 WAR - Drafted Aaron Hicks - 4.7 WAR - Traded for a BU Catcher (JR Murphy) Didi Gregorius - 4.2 - Acquired before coming established Giancarlo Stanton – 4 WAR - Prospect cost reduced significantly by taking on salary Gleyber Torres - 2.9 WAR Traded for while in A+ Brett Gardner - 2.8 WAR - Drafted Miguel Andujar - 2.2 WAR - Acquired for established player Only one position player (Stanton) was a product of free agency or trade for an established player. The prospect cost was substantially lower than normal because of his large contract. Luis Severino - 4.8 – WAR - Drafted Masahiro Tanaka – 2.9 WAR - Int FA Chad Green - 2.3 WAR - Traded for while in A+ Dellin Betances - 1.7 WAR - Drafted Aroldis Chapman - 1.7 WAR - FA The Yankees highest impact SP (Severino) was drafted. They had only one other SP over 2.5 WAR (Tanka) who of course was an International FA. Their 2 most impactful RPs (Green) was acquired wjhile in A+ and Betances was drafted. Chapman 1.7 WAR was a FA. Free agency had a role but their greatest value by far was drafting and trading for players that were still prospects. Summary – By far the most impact came from smart trades for players that had not yet produced at a high level at the ML level and drafting. Of course, the Yankees could easily spend $100M more on players than the Twins and you would expect to see evidence of that spending ability. They were able to get Stanton for a modest price in prospects because of his salary and they were able to attract Tanaka. His 2.9 WAR is not what we would call dominant but a reasonably important contributor. They also spent to get Chapman. To put it in prospective, The Yankees incremental income over the Twins covers Tanaka, Stanton, and Chapman with enough left over to sign 2 more players for another $25M AAV each. Therefore, they can spend the Twins entire budget on 20 players instead of 25 players. Therefore, after signing all of those players, the Yankees could still spend 20% more AAV than the twins on their remaining roster. Perhaps the real problem is that fans just don’t understand that this difference in spending ability absolutely dictates that mid tier teams need to take a different approach if they are to have any chance of success.

No you have not even come close to answering the question. How does examples of what did not work answer the question of what does? Let's just start simple. Would you agree that there would be ample examples of successful mid tier teams building through specifically high end FAs and trading for establish players? It would be real nice if you started with an answer to this question. The only other alternative is that all of the mid tier teams have incompetent executives that just don't understand how to build a team as well as the posters here. Is that your position? If not, show me actual proof. All you have provided is anecdotal come-backs. I even provided you a simple model where the acquisition method for all of the 3 WAR position players and SPs is shown as well as the WAR for RPs over 1.5 WAR. if the practices you and others insist are critical the rosters for the majority of mid tier playoff teams over the past 10 years should have players of this type making major contributions. If not, there are a lot of TDers complaining that the Twins won't follow practices that have proven to be ineffective or at best, less effective. Do you want to take a look at numerous examples and come to an educated position or would you rather just insist the FO is incompetent. Ironically, the most incompetent thing we can do is not examine the evidence.

Timer after time, I ask for examples. What I am hearing is constant insistence that the front office is incompetent and that TD participants have a better understanding of how to build a team. If this is true, there would be numerous examples of teams applying the practices being insisted upon unless your point is that they are all tooo stupid to every apply these practices. Which is it. Are TDers just smarter than all the executives running mid tier teams or are there enough examples to substantiate the practices being promoted here? Where are the examples. Is anyone here interested in taking an unbiased look at the success of various practices because based on the refusal of anyone to supply a direct answer most people just want to complain about something that they have not even evaluated fairly.

Actually, as I pointed out, examples of top 5 markets are not all that relevant in determining best practices for a mid market team. However, the Dodgers provide a very good example of effective strategy and why they refuse to trade top prospects even though they are a top 3 market. Since you are so interested in proof, how about showing some relevant examples of mid market teams employing the strategies you constantly harp on. I even outlined the parameters for you. Of course, we can just ignore the relevant facts and continue to bit#$ about the Twins NOT following strategies that have been largely ineffective. There should be plenty of examples if the tactics you prescribe have merit. For once back up conclusion with evidence.

You make a good point here. You could make a point that your assertion is why the Mariners opted to rebuild this year as well as Chicago when they traded Sale and others. It's interesting to look at how the true contenders have been built over the past decade. It appears most people just assume big free agents and trades for impact players are the key because recent history does not support that assumption. For all the complaining there should be ample examples of mid market teams building contenders when utilizing premier free agents and trades for established impact players. Lots of noise with no validation. One could make a case that examples like the Red Sox have less validity given their ability to spend. However, I think there is still something to be learned from examples like the Dodgers who tried to buy a team with limited success.They cut around $75M from the 25 man roster in 2017 and put a great team on the field that was deep like the other teams you mentioned. They produced 104 wins. Here are all of the players from the 2017 team with WAR of 2+. Corey Seager - 5.9WAR - Drafted Justin Turner - 5.4 WAR – Never broke 1 WAR before being acquired by the Dodgers Chris Taylor - 4.8 WAR – Had .5 career WAR before being acquired by the Dodgers. Cody Bellinger 4.0 WAR - Drafted Yasiel Puig - 2.9 WAR – International Draft Austin Barnes - 2.5 WAR – Dodgers traded an established player (Dee Gordon) for Barnes Yasmani Grandal - 2.5 WAR – Had a good rookie season (2.4) WAR then .6 WAR in 2013 and 1 WAR in 2014. He was not an established performer after a combined 1.6 WAR in the 2 previous years. Joc Pederson was hurt a lot in 2017 so he did not contribute like he did the 2016 but he too was drafted. Clayton Kershaw - 4.6 WAR - Drafted Kenley Jansen - 3.6 WAR - Drafted Alex Wood - 3.5 – Traded in a 13 player 3 team trade. The Dodgers gave up very little for him. Rich Hill - 2.6 – Signed as a FA in 2017 for 3/48. mid-tier where free agent SPs are concerned. Brandon McCarthy - 2.4 WAR – Freeagent signed for 3/36M Kenta Maeda - 2.0 – International FA - $20M signing fee + 25M over 8 years. The cost including the posting fee is an AAV of 5.625M In summary, 4 of the position players were acquired via trade. All of them fit far better into the unproven category than proven at the time. There was not a single established player acquired via trade. There was also not a single high profile free agent. The 2017 Dodgers team was made-up of players drafted by the Dodgers or acquired as prospects. Just another example of trading established players for prospects being more effective than vice versa. Is there any wonder why the Dodgers have been so ardent about holding on to their prospects in recent years or for that matter why the Twins are not willing to trade our best prospects. The league is adapting.

So, in other words, you can't provide any substantive proof so I will continue to offer anecdotal evidence. There are several examples of playoff teams with equivalent or less evidence over the past few years. The evidence is clear that big dollar free agents and trades have had a minor or in some case no impact. You sure do avoid the facts. Are you also going to debate that all of the ML teams are placing far less importance on big $ free agents or that they are all very reluctant to trade top prospects? BTW ... Morris was signed to a 1 year deal. You sure don't stick to a premise. After absolutely harping on the Twins won't sign multi year deals, you use a 1 year contract as an to support your point. I would add that examples of 25+ years ago is not the best evidence of how to succeed today. The Kansas city example is not great either. They were a better team after shields left and the won the WS without him. Yes, they got Davis but nobody here would have thought that he was an important asset when the trade was made.

Where in my post did I say they did. I said show me examples where the practices you harp on constantly have worked. Actually, what is relevant is the relative success of trading for prospects or unproven MLB talent vs trading for proven talent. What is also relevant is how much of a role higher end free agents of played and how often have they failed vs succeeded. This constant complaint about strategy is never backed with fact. Show me examples. I will give you Milwaukee last year but how they won 96 games with one SP over 2 WAR is beyond me. Show me 78 win teams with equivalent budgets who traded away top prospects. Show me teams with equivalent budgets who have found success signing top free agents, especially after a 78 win season. I have provided list after list of the failures. Show me the successes and we will compare the length of the lists. Trading for prospects or players not yet established at the MLB level has been far more influential than trading for established players, especially outside the top revenue markets.

The fact that the Twins have not succeeded is not in question, not even a little. However, that failure has absolutely nothing to do with best practices or what strategies they should follow going forward. This argument drives me out of my mind. Following less productive strategies because they have failed to execute good strategies is the definition of incompetence. The fact that it is faster would only be relevant if it had an equivalent or even close to equivalent chance of working. There is a reason the entire league is emphasizing drafting and development. There are reasons why you constantly hear team X is interested in player Y but won't part with top prospects. There are reasons why long-term contracts, especially for 30 or 30+ players are being avoided. To ignore all of the trends because we want gratification now is horribly ill-conceived strategy.

I am sure the Brewers will be mentioned as an example and their two most important players were acquired by trade and free agency. They are an example of trades/FA working but a weird one. They only had 2 pitchers over 2 WAR and one was a RP. He was drafted. The only SP with 2+WAR was Chacin and he is the type of signing being hated on here. They only had four 2WAR+ position players of which Yehlich and Cane led the way. It yielded 96 wins last year but I am not sure how.

I would not be fair of me to ask for examples of teams where trades for established players and high end free agent acquisition were big contributors without offering an example of teams who's success had little or nothing to do with this type of acquisition. In other words, teams that have proven that the opposite of what is being promoted here is the best path to success. Atlanta had 4 position players at 3 WAR or higher but they had Inciarte at 2.9 so I will include him. Freddie Freeman - 5.2 WAR – Drafted by the A’s with the 78th pick. Ozzie Albies- 3.8 WAR - Signed as an Int free agent for $350K. Ronald Acuna - 3.7 WAR - Signed as an Int free agent for $350K. Johan Camargo - 3.3 WAR – Signed as an Int free agent for $42K. Ender Inciarte - 2.9 WAR – Acquired by trading away a proven middle of the rotation SP (Miller) The braves also got a top 10 prospect in Danby Swanson. In other words, the exact opposite approach being supported by many here. The Brave’s position players are a result of good drafting and International signings. None of the International draftees were particularly high profile. The total expenditure for all three was just under $500K They had 1 good SP and two decent SPs. Their best SP (Mike Foltynewicz) was acquired by trading away an established player (Gattis) when Foltynewicz had not yet established himself at the MLB level. He finally stepped up in 2018. Their 2nd best SP was Sanchez who the Twins cut. He was not great and certainly is not the type of difference maker acquisition being called for here. The other Sp to log decent innings was Sean Newcomb who the A’s traded Andrelton Simmons to acquire. Again the opposite practice being called for here by many. The Braves roster was built trading away established talent for prospects or MLB players that have never deliver a 3 WAR season. There are no big $ free agents or high $ International signings. None. I will be happy to offer another if someone can give an example of a successful team with similar financial resource that utilized the practices suggested here. I am not even sure if you could fund an example of any team with similar revenue that trade away top 50 prospects after a season under 500.