The good thing is Gio Gonzalez was an easy sell as a 5 win player what with his 6.6 fWAR over 535 career innings. do you seriously believe that i have been arguing gio gonzalez is or was viewed as a 5 win player? or is it that you just cannot engage in an argument/discussion without creating some absurd strawman? I don't know what you're arguing. Garza's most recent season isn't going to change anybody's mind about what type of pitcher he is, but Gio Gonzalez's 2 seasons will? Do you think 2 years of Garza coming off his best season returns more than 2 months of Garza coming off an injury? ETA: The funny thing is it appears OUR FO decided Garza was going to perform closer to that 5 win player, otherwise they would've sold high before the season we all agree they weren't trying to win at. Instead they figured he'd at least pitch well enough until July to return something just as good for 1.5 seasons vs. 2. They gambled and lost, it happens. They did the same with Marmol, and probably Soto.
If they do what they've done with pitching in the past (a couple guys from the McCarthy/Liriano/whatever is out there along those lines), is that enough? What is that a 70M payroll?
They should want the full year of Bryant at 29 and Baez at 28 more than making their 2015s slightly better, it's an enormous benefit with little sacrificed. Even in the most extreme example of parity you can come up with between them and their placeholders, it's costing the 2015 a single win to gain tens of millions of value. And Valbuena is good enough that one of Baez/Bryant won't be filling a 'hole' anyway. If signing Baez and Bryant in 2021 is an issue then PTR has failed beyond even my wildest dreams.
I don't think that's really part of their strategy. Just kind of a coincidence. You've also got Travis Wood, Chris Volstad, the aborted Delgado acquisition, Vizcaino, and to a lesser extent; Michael Bowden, Jaye Chapman, and Henry Rodriguez