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Well I will clarify on my part, and bow out as well.

The past few offseasons have been some of the most aggressive from the Cardinals that we've seen during the Walt/Mo era. Pulling the trigger on the Heyward trade was aggressive--one of the only times we have been willing to part with a prime prospect/player to get high value in return. The contracts they were putting out there for Heyward and Price went way beyond the comfort zone this team typically has--matched only by our offers to Pujols and to a lesser extent Holliday (McGwire if you want to go way back). Last offseason we put a priority on Fowler being our big FA add (one of the top FA bats available), and we overpaid a bit to land him. This year the Cardinals went hard on Stanton, pulled off a great trade for Ozuna, and have been probing around a lot of other significant players.

The results are what they are. Sure they turtled a little bit after missing out on Heyward and Price--they didn't like the other players available at the prices the market valued them at (and they were probably smart to do so in the majority of cases). I'll fault them for stage fright during the trade deadline this past season.

Despite all of our complaints, the Cardinals' front office is smart. They're successful. Most every fanbase in MLB would love to have them. They're not perfect, and they make mistakes. We had two sub-par seasons. We do have an opportunity to make a couple more tweaks to the 2018 team, which I personally think we are still looking at. We still have deep resources to dip into, both in money and prospects. I can understand the frustration with the team not dipping into those to go for it--it frustrates me a bit too--but I do still think we should be fair to how good the front office is.

letsgocards89 wrote:The offseason began with a lot of comments from the front office about being aggressive, roster makeover, etc. Now, to be fair, the roster will look different than last season. However, my frustration comes from the fact that after years of being fairly passive the expectation that they would be aggressive was welcome but in reality, the message is really more of aggression in looking for sensible transactions instead of aiming for a division title.

Is aggressiveness defined by the pursuit, or by the results? I think the Cardinals have been anything but "passive" in recent years.

letsgocards89 wrote:The offseason began with a lot of comments from the front office about being aggressive, roster makeover, etc. Now, to be fair, the roster will look different than last season. However, my frustration comes from the fact that after years of being fairly passive the expectation that they would be aggressive was welcome but in reality, the message is really more of aggression in looking for sensible transactions instead of aiming for a division title.

Acquiring an all star outfielder isn't aggressive enough?

letsgocards89 wrote:The offseason began with a lot of comments from the front office about being aggressive, roster makeover, etc. Now, to be fair, the roster will look different than last season. However, my frustration comes from the fact that after years of being fairly passive the expectation that they would be aggressive was welcome but in reality, the message is really more of aggression in looking for sensible transactions instead of aiming for a division title.

Yep. You can pay market price for all the Cecils and Fowlers of the world but it's not moving the needle.

dmarx114 wrote:

letsgocards89 wrote:The offseason began with a lot of comments from the front office about being aggressive, roster makeover, etc. Now, to be fair, the roster will look different than last season. However, my frustration comes from the fact that after years of being fairly passive the expectation that they would be aggressive was welcome but in reality, the message is really more of aggression in looking for sensible transactions instead of aiming for a division title.

Acquiring an all star outfielder isn't aggressive enough?

It's not enough. Just like Fowler wasn't enough last year.

MrCrowesGarden wrote:

dmarx114 wrote:

letsgocards89 wrote:The offseason began with a lot of comments from the front office about being aggressive, roster makeover, etc. Now, to be fair, the roster will look different than last season. However, my frustration comes from the fact that after years of being fairly passive the expectation that they would be aggressive was welcome but in reality, the message is really more of aggression in looking for sensible transactions instead of aiming for a division title.

Acquiring an all star outfielder isn't aggressive enough?

It's not enough. Just like Fowler wasn't enough last year.

Wait, I thought you were done?

I was done with the games. If you'd like to have a civil discussion, we can do that.

dmarx114 wrote:

letsgocards89 wrote:The offseason began with a lot of comments from the front office about being aggressive, roster makeover, etc. Now, to be fair, the roster will look different than last season. However, my frustration comes from the fact that after years of being fairly passive the expectation that they would be aggressive was welcome but in reality, the message is really more of aggression in looking for sensible transactions instead of aiming for a division title.

Acquiring an all star outfielder isn't aggressive enough?

Is it possible to be pumped about the move but also think it's not enough? Because that's where I am with that.

MrCrowesGarden wrote:I was done with the games. If you'd like to have a civil discussion, we can do that.

Stop it. You're a mod........ act like it.

There was nothing uncivil about the discussion that I was having, and nobody was playing games. It was a 100% baseball-related discussion, until you chose to "LOL", and become condescending when I had to explain to you what we were talking about.

Why are some people acting like the offseason is over?

like 75 of the top 100 free agents are still out there. The only major group of players to sign have been closers and set up guys, and there are still several of the out there.

To give the cardinals an offseason grade already when its only halfway done is ludicrous to me