Or less.
Like everybody else (at least most folks), I think most of the available money's already spent - and if that's really the case, that leads to at least a couple of legitimate questions about what's going on.
1.) Who on earth involved in the decision-making process thinks that upgrading from Markakis to the injury-prone Donaldson without any other significant upgrades makes the 2019 team a bigger threat to win anything more than the 2018 team won - especially when everybody else around you is getting better and nobody even thought you could do what you did last season? I remember an interview with AA before the meetings where he said they felt like most of the heavy-lifting had been accomplished when they got Donaldson and Mac taken care of early, but honestly believed that was just GM-Speak.
AND
2.) Exactly why in the *ell was there a "scheduled meeting" between AA and the Liberty folks DURING the Winter Meetings?
Our prospects haven't mysteriously gotten more valuable over the last three weeks or so, so if there's a big trade coming exactly what the *ell is the holdup? He's been told what it will take to get Haniger or Peralta, and that price isn't going to change. If you want one of them, there's absolutely no need to wait to pull the trigger. The same thing can be said of any potential Realmuto/Kluber/Bumgarner/Greinke deal. The only questions remaining on those guys is whether you're willing to pay the price - and apparently he isn't.
Did he really need to be summoned to Liberty headquarters to be reminded he has no more money to spend on the free-agent or trade markets? The folks higher up the ladder couldn't simply have called or texted him to make that clear? How out of whack is this operation if he didn't know that before he signed Donaldson and Mac? If you couldn't afford to add Brantley, McCutchen, Pollock, or any of the pen pieces or SPs already off the board in addition to those two, where in the *ell did all the money go? If they're that broke, why did they bother to spend all that money to send a group of people to the meetings? You mean to tell me that no one had enough sense to look at a calendar earlier and schedule that meeting before the meetings would be going on?
It's perfectly understandable to make the argument that everybody should have been thrilled with 2018 even though the Dodgers embarrassed them in the playoffs because they got there a year ahead of schedule, but the window is open now and something's just not right - Acuna and Albies are here, Ender and Dansby are at least giving you everything you could've hoped for defensively, Camargo's much better than expected, and the arms are ready. If you're not willing or able to do what it takes to fill the other holes at this point, you never will be - the young talent isn't ever going to be any cheaper.
