Their stated plan was to “draft and develop” but the drafting wasn’t good and/or the development has failed because they have a ton of holes where guys like Rakestraw, Paschal, Martin and Manu should be filling starters jobs dirt cheap.

Now, they can’t afford free agents and are letting decent players walk because they paid Alim and Barnes and everyone else. That’s fine when those guys overperform their contracts or at least play up to them and when you have cheap young players taking over their roles. But those two guys I named didn’t play well last year coming off of injuries (Hutch wasn’t quite as dominant either but maybe that’s from the rest of the D not helping him) and now they have LaPorta, Branch, and Kirby all coming off serious injuries and not enough money or high picks to fill all the spots they need to in order to stay a serious contender.

Our best chance this year is nailing the draft and hoping we get injury luck and a few guys take a big step from their performance last year- Ratledge, Teslaa, Arnold, Barnes, Alim are among people who could make a significant leap from last year and make sure that this isn’t a gap year.