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I don't mean to imply that Dipoto doesn't care about the team winning...his career depends on him caring. I mean to imply that he is not interested in doing things any way other than the way he feels is dogmatically correct in principle, even if the situation demands it. He thinks free agent contracts are terrible most of the time. He's partially correct in that assertion. But he thinks that so strongly that he won't even consider a mid-tier free agent addition when one is quite evidently needed...even a four-year deal is not his style unless it's a player he loves like Segura. He thinks the minor leagues are for farming for other guy's major leaguers. I can understand that, but he thinks it so much that his valuation for minor leaguers in our own system is badly distorted and he is too willing to give guys away to get the people he wants (the opposite of a guy like Gillick). He thinks his judgment of those borderline minor leaguers is far superior to the average, so he isn't interested in looking for new talent any other way.

I gave him a very long leash, because, at first, his disgorging of minor league talent made sense (the team needed to compete while retooling the big league line-up to get younger and more well-rounded, and our system was full of guys I didn't think were worth developing), while signing free agents seemed a dodgy move because we didn't know what we had. But...once you've built the core...which we now have...it's irresponsible not to use all means at your disposal to complete the picture...almost unethical from the perspective of the players.