Most of the position players are not what I'd call aging at this point.
Has some poor luck there but it happens. That's the risk of locking up a group even if they are young. The flexibility goes away.
You are evidently labeling it as an excuse, but it's just a mere statement of fact.
it was reported he did, everyone knows he did, not sure why in response to questioning saying that he did runs you the wrong way.
He seemed generally clueless about anything the team would do often telling twitter that they’d never do anything like it leading up to it actually happening.
I thought he was pretty bad at his job.
If the net result was a larger amount of money after accounting for an apocalyptic discount rate sure.
I assume that's why the free market counter parties with enormous amounts of leverage are agreeing to sign up for it.