Hmm, okay. That makes much more sense, and I can pretty much cosign everything you just said. Just about the only thing I am dogmatic about is my hatred of dogma. I suppose my point of disagreement now is whether signing a Civic is doable from a payroll standpoint. Some quick, possibly inaccurate digging shows the Ms current 2018 payroll at ~160mm. I have no idea what Darvish will eventually pull down in a contract, but let’s be very conservative and say 15mm a year. Add that to what we've got and we're at 175mm. Last year's opening day roster cost 154mm, 13th in the league (dead middle of the bell curve). 175mm would have been the 7th highest opening day payroll last year. That's not an insignificant leap.
I know Stanton and ownership keep making noise like the Ms have money left, but it might not be a Darvish amount (or if it is, that might preclude any additional ST or midseason acquisitions). This would explain why JeDi went full bore after Ohtani: he knew he needed one more impact player but couldn't afford to pay one on the FA market. Now, this would certainly be an indictment of ownership for pinching pennies when the roster is one impact SP away from guaranteed contention and the need for a playoff berth becomes more desperate by the year. But it's not really an indictment of JeDi or his philosophy, is it? Which is still not to say that he has the right philosophy, just that this may not really be relevant evidence of its flaws.
Am I missing something?
Edit to add: I realize you never explicitly said "sign Yu", but I'm running on the assumption that anything less than a TOR isn't really very helpful for this team. We have a million options for the 5 slot, and the other 4 look solid. Not playoff worthy, but good enough that it would take a pretty talented pitcher to really change the complexion of the group. Or may I'm wrong, and another Mike Leake would make a world of difference. Still, are there even any Leakes available for a reasonable price in the current market?