Failure to grab at least one of Chapman/Darvish/Cespedes

[Kurtz]

Failure to land Domonic Brown in the Halladay trade needs an honourable mention

If memory serves, he was the one untouchable prospect for Philly. Unfortunately.

[Skin Blues]

The difference is the Jays finished 2nd in both sweepstakes. So they were interested in Darvish and Chapman from the get go to the end.

There's no way to know what the Jays bid for Darvish, or what any other team bid, so this is a ridiculous claim. I wanted Darvish as much as anybody else but we don't even know if AA made a competitive offer. I think it was a good risk, but keep in mind that 29 other MLB teams didn't win the bid either and they were privy to at least as much information as all of us couch managers.

I don't remember the Chapman business and whether or not we know for sure what the Jays bid, but so far he's cost the Reds just about what he's been worth. Of course, that's mostly their fault for using him as a reliever instead of a starter, because he could have been worth a lot more. But still; $25M for 3 years (which is the effective contract; he'll have 3 years of service time and be arb eligible after this season which makes the $3M a bonus, and he will decline the $5M option for 2015) is a lot of cash for a reliever. He basically had to be the best and healthiest reliever in the world to make that financially viable, which he has done, and that's quite a risk to take. They might have some cost savings in his three arbitration years, but I'm guessing those three years will cost > $30M (based on Papelbon's precedent) and I just don't see any way that he will be worth that much unless they give Dusty the boot and make Chapman a starter.

Chapman wants to close

Also, it's not your money, right? We should want our organization to spend top dollar on top players

It's not my money but I definitely care about making smart decisions about how to allocate that money, and the Reds aren't getting any return on their investment. But of course, if we used Chapman as a starter right away chances are he'd be much more valuable right now, and I don't know that AA would have left him as a reliever. Chapman wants to stay a reliever because he knows he's good at it and he knows it guarantees another big payday. The team should not be concerned with Chapman's risk aversion.