You are right not offering the third year was the issue not pure dollars... This was never about "C the Z" of wanting Kuma to play for the Mariners, it was always about resource allocation, and yes the 2018 resources are important too, and JeDi knows that 15 mil sitting on the DL is a heavy burden to carry around, so he was trying to mitigate risk (2 years plus an option)... So I don't see how that comes into the C the Z thing at all... You can't have just ONE principal... and Jedi clearly has several:
1.) C the Z
2.) Athletisism and Defense
3.) Risk mitigation (raising the floor even at the cost of lowering teh celing)
4.) Resource allocation (No huge FA Signings)
There are probably more (in fact doesn't he have a list of 7 "Cardinal way" principals or something? And they are overlapping and aren't mutally exclusive, and for each player one may weigh more heavily (like Martin in CF). So I don't see the Kuma thing as JeDi not sticking to his C the Z gun at all costs I saw it as him weigh principle 4 more than principle 1...