Meaning 1 out of 11 "core pieces" were acquired through trading the cancerous vets and 1 out of 11 acquired from being really bad at the major league level. The point isnt that the core was acquired by trading off soriano, soto, whoever, it's that they weren't going to be able to add pieces with an old, expensive, bad roster. You can suck with Zambrano, Dempster, Garza, etc, or you can suck without them while acquiring something you think might help in the future. Why do you think Anibal Sanchez went to Detroit instead of Chicago? Maybe because Detroit is competing for a World Series and the cubs are trying not to lose 100 games.