Would our farm system be any worse right now if we signed free agents this past offseason? Would our 2013 team be better? absolutely, we would have made a misguided attempt at contention and kept Marshall, Dempster, Cashner, Maholm, etc. in most likely a completely futile endeavor (trying to compete this year)* Pujols, Wilson, Ramirez...their primes are all behind them and they are likely to decline going forward; they'd make us worse next year and beyond relative to the younger, more appropriate, more intelligent FA signings we're likely to make *edit: would we also have had the funds remaining available to sign Soler?