Keeping Julio and not drastically improving the offense for next season is pointless.
There are 2 courses of action:
1. Keep Julio and improve the offense for next year by signing guys like Desmond (3B), Cespedes (LF) and Castro (C). If the team is not willing to commit to fully retooling the position players of the MLB club, then they need to go to the next option....
2. Give up on 2017, and trade Julio for guys that will be ready around the same time the young pitching in the organization will be ready to anchor the staff (2018 and later). This means guys like Moncada and Bregman are the targets.
Trying to walk some in-between path where they waste Teheran's surplus value by not improving the offense around him would be the the worst possible decision, and is exactly how teams end up in long term mediocrity.
Here we completely agree. I just don't think #1 is a realistic option for us, not only because we tend to not get in bidding wars, but it'll take more than Des/Ces/Castro to get this team contending -- but if they do keep JT, that's what they need to do.
Totally agree with your second thought, if we don't really try to get better next year, than keeping Julio is pointless.