Until 2015, Rodney walked people, and gave up ground ball hits and such. But his ability to avoid the long ball made him an acceptable risk. Funny how that "RODNEY!!!" advertisement became a joke on us: we're the ones screaming "RODNEY!!!" looking up in anguish with our hands into the air.
Anyway, when Rodney began giving up and blowing saves with homers and doubles, THAT should have been the telling sign. But with veterans, you ignore signs like that longer than you probably should. And with our sick and anemic offense we found ourselves trading away surplus arms again to find position players. But, that's OK. We can fix a bullpen. Easiest job for a GM, unless it doesn't work. If it doesn't work it will vex him like nothing else (apart maybe from top ten can't miss prospects failing with regularity perhaps), and cause him to trade away future Jeff Bagwells
Of course, Danny F. was always our fallback guy. And he picked a fine time to be terrible.