Perhaps I’ve just cherry-picked your thoughtful response to this situation, but I keep coming back to these two points. They knew they had to keep it close, yet they were no where near close. And they knew Boras, where the highest bid wins (most of the time), yet we were so far from it. I get the disciplined part, too. But they were just so far off the mark. And yet we outsiders had a better sense of what it would take. Many here wouldn’t have gone that high, some would, but we all had a better sense than 285/10. We saw what other SS were paid both this and last off season. I have a difficult time accepting this is just a disciplined approach. I don’t doubt their sincerity in wanting to do a good job. I understand how it feels when outsiders judge your work when they have little to no understanding of what you do and how it all works. But how could they seriously not know they were so far off the mark? This leaves me, the fan, defeated and wondering if we will ever have a winning team again. We are left with development and trade as a means to an end, and it will never be enough in this environment. We may get lucky and one year just have that ‘special’ team, when it all just clicks, but that is too much hope. I’ll keep watching, sort of, but winning matters in the end. And disciplined is just not going to win.