This is a laughable thread. There have been discussions online and TV as well about how thin the June draft is going to be in terms of impact players and besides it could be 3 or 4 yrs down the road before it bears any fruit. This is not the NFL.
The attitude that 75 wins is better than dead last for this team is what is laughable. This is, was and will continue to be for the short term a bad team. And, while a competitive team that falls just short of a pennant and/or WS can be edifying on a limited basis, it is not why you play the game. You play the game to win pennants and bring home WS trophies. But, even being competitive was never really in the cards for this team once the FO finally and rightfully decided that the team was badly constructed and on a path to complete uncontrolled meltdown. At least in doing what they did, they were able to control to a point the crash.
This isn't soccer mom league where everybody is a winner and everybody gets a trophy and no one should feel bad about the fact that they suck and therefore no one should feel incentivized to be better. This is
Professional baseball, baseball where players get paid to perform and success or failure is based upon the ability of the team to entertain the public out of their hard earned cash.
The draft is
one mechanism in place to help teams rise from the bottom. It can be debated as to how effective that is but at least most agree that teams with good FO management and a willing to spend and better position in the draft do well over the long haul. No, it isn't the NFL draft. But, MLB isn't the NFL either.
To ignore a major aspect of talent acquisition (assuming you have people in place to maximize the effectiveness of position by picking well) in pursuit of some ill fated win every game you can because that's what competitors do strategy is insane. The rules are what they are. If MLB wanted max effort out of all teams all the time, they wouldn't establish the rules in such a way as to encourage otherwise.
The rules today are in place in such a way so that every means of acquiring new talent outside of FA signings (monetarily expensive) and trades (monetarily expensive AND talent expensive) favors the teams with the worst records.
I think of it like this: The team is sick. It can take a shot that will hurt short term but will be most effective to cure the illness OR it could choose to take a long course of pills that are much less effective and might eventually lead back to the necessity of the shot anyway. Assuming you have a good doctor that knows what he's doing the choice is easy.
