Players who it's a good thing we didn't acquire this past offseason

[DavidGee24]

I went back and looked at my off season plans.

They mostly centered around landing Luis Robert, Brandon Lowe, Alec Bohm and Yoan Moncada.

2ish of those would have been pretty nice.

I saw Lowe's name come up here and he'd be a great pickup, but was he even available this past offseason?

[Donn Beach]

I warned about him. Right that age that hitters implode in this pitching environment.

sure, but I don't understand why a few months of aging would lead to a sudden huge drop in performance.

Eventually there's a line you reach and apparently he crossed it.

Yeah, I'm not questioning it happening, maybe its the line I'm curious about. Seems odd a guy can go decades being very good at playing baseball turn a certain age and suddenly can't do it anymore. Certainly someone's ability declines but its that steep angle, what exactly is the trigger. There can be signs, like a decline in bat speed but I don't think Walker exhibited them, that's what made him a reasonable target. Abreu on the other hand had had displayed some. The Abreu signing had been questioned for that reason, at least the length. That signing happened when they were without a GM, or at least someone actually in charge. Supposedly Crane was trying to handle things

[Seattle or Bust]

I went back and looked at my off season plans.

They mostly centered around landing Luis Robert, Brandon Lowe, Alec Bohm and Yoan Moncada.

2ish of those would have been pretty nice.

I saw Lowe's name come up here and he'd be a great pickup, but was he even available this past offseason?

I think the Rays were asking a lot more than he was worth if he was.

Issue with trading for him was him being cheap, perpetually injured, and highly productive when healthy. The Rays probably felt anything they'd sell him for would be short of what he was worth while other teams didn't want to take the risk with injuries.