Not enough exceptional talent, and too much marginal talent. Barring a huge breakout from Milledge, Cutch is the only position player who’d be a top player for any team in baseball. Beyond him, the most talented guys are nice players – maybe the 3rd or 4th best on a good team. And beyond that, the middle infield looks marginal at best. Cedeno looks like maybe a bit more than we thought we were getting, but he still tops out at not much more than an acceptable piece. LaRoche, of course, has to break out just to go from marginal to solid, let alone exceptional.

I’m not trying to rain on any parades; I’m trying to keep an even keel and recognize that there just isn’t that much aggregate talent on the field (I do think that the rotation could very well achieve mediocrity next year).

I wouldn’t give up on Capps altogether, but Hanrahan needs to get a legit chance to close in spring training.

The offense is still lacking, though. Just not enough power, although Alvarez would help. A 2B is needed; I’m OK with Cedeno at SS, I think, and the 1B situation needs to be resolved if Jones is in RF.

The top 4 spots on the rotation seem set (Duke, Maholm, Ohlendorf, Morton), and there should be a decent competition for the 5th spot. Kind of like recent years, except the guys competing (McCutchen, Lincoln, maybe Hart) are better than the Karstens/Vasquez/JVB/Dumatrait types of players that have competed for the back end in recent years.

His tenure doesn’t fall within the bounds of rationality.

I had a long parenthetical addition to the above comment, but I wanted to spell out in more detail how I think DL was a bit unlucky in not fielding a .500 team at least once:

DL’s ‘04 team, with Aramis still in place and Well and Benson living up to their talent, would very likely have won 82 (or more). The lineup is surprisingly strong, with Kendall (OPS .789), JWilson (.794), CWilson (.853), and JBay (.908), plus a half season of DWard at a non-embarrassing, if non-impressive, .779. Add ARam (.951) to that, and it’s a legit ML lineup, even with holes at 2B and CF.

Their worst pitcher that year was Vogelsong (which is squarely on DL’s shoulders, although the Giants thought he was a top prospect too), but both Wells and Benson had ERAs well into the 4s. With Ollie having his great season, if Benson and Wells had simply pitched a bit better – say, half a run apiece of ERA – then it makes a big difference. And that’s not just wishing that Player X would be better – both of those guys had the talent and history to be sub-4 pitchers.

Meanwhile, 3B was an epic falloff from ARam. Incredibly, Aramis OPS+ was 138 that year; Chris Stynes was 46 (!) and Wigginton was 68. In terms of runs created, ARam was +33 on the year, while Stynes and Ty combined for -13 (Stynes had better D, Ty did not). That alone closes the RA/RS gap from 64 to 18 (at which point better pitching from the guys mentioned above puts them solidly into .500 territory).

Of course you can always wish for things and imagine better outcomes. There were lots of things wrong with that team that were under DL’s control – that was the Year of Mondesi and Randall Simon, plus the biggest no-talent on the field (Stynes aside) was Vogelsong, with an incredible 6.50 ERA in 31 starts. My point is simply that the shortfall from these 3 players, none of which can be put on DL’s shoulders, was pretty much the difference between a winning and a losing team.

But OK, seriously, wtf was wrong with DL? I’ve asked this a few times around here lately, and it doesn’t seem like anyone has a good answer.

I don’t think there’s any one thing you could cite, other than perhaps the Peter Principle. But I do think he had a number of recognizable deficiencies.

For starters, he set the team back with his insistence on drafting first round pitchers for almost his entire tenure. I understand the desire to build the team through pitching but young pitchers are the least likely to succeed. By exclusively drafting pitchers in the first round, DL was pursuing the riskiest strategy possible. Is it any surprise that the majority of these guys didn’t succeed? Of course not. The overwhelming majority of all young pitchers don’t succeed. The current regime has a far better strategy — grab a position player in the first round then draft a ton of high risk high reward arms later. Better to have quantity than to pin your hopes on that one guy.

Similarly, DL got lucky one year by dumpster diving the free agent market, getting Sanders. Stairs, Lofton and Suppan. This seemed to influence his decision-making the remainder of his tenure, as every year he brought in a Stynes or Mondesi or Burnitz. A smarter GM would have realized he was unlikely to catch lightning in a bottle twice, and signed some of these guys to multi-year deals. It really should have been the Pirates that got a few productive years out of Sanders and Suppan instead of the Cardinals, if you ask me.

DL also preferred aggressive hitters. There’s a reason the Pirates as a team were always at the bottom of the league each year in walks and OBP. They pursued guys who swung early and often, and they didn’t seem to emphasize strike zone discipline at the minor league level.

I could go on, but the common thread, to me, is that DL didn’t just make poor decisions, it seemed his philosophy on how to build a team ensured that he would continue to make one poor decision after another.

Special assistant or something?