I mean, what is this confidence that you so desperately need? We never really know what they're going to do. That's life! It's not my money, so I don't get to choose, and there's no special privilege I get to watch a special baseball team that wins all the time just because I'm such a good guy and great fan.
More importantly, I find this insistence that expecting the FO to spend money in the future is "blind optimism/wishcasting" rank with recency bias. And when I say recency bias, I mean, like, this offseason recency bias. Expecting them to spend is not pollyannaish, it's what the FO has always done.
They've got a long history of dishing out money for free agents. JUST LAST YEAR they signed a likely future DH to a 10 year/300 million dollar deal. Just a few years ago they dished out an obscene amount of cash to extend Sale. They spent tons on David Price, they spent on Manny Ramirez, they spent on Carl Crawford and Pablo Sandoval, they spent on JD Drew and Trevor Story and so on and so forth. I'm sure we'll hear the same old saw about how some of those deals aren't "as big" as others, but the Devers deal was very, very big, and acting like it didn't happen doesn't help anyone's argument.
There's some signs that the FO is spending less, yes, but if the hold-up is they don't want another megadeal to a pitcher in his 30's to blow-up in their faces, I don't blame them, and I'm happy they're being prudent, as a fan.The Price deal, the Sale deal -- those totally bit them in the ass.
When they say that they intend to spend when they see a deal that fits their timeline, yeah, I believe them, because they've been doing that ever since they bought the team.
What I suspect is going on this offseason is Bloom failed to trade guys he needed to and get them to where they wanted to on a reset, so they canned him, and they hoped to land Yamamoto, but it didn't work out, and they don't like the frankly preposterous deals Snell and Montgomery have been agitating for, and so they're either astutely waiting till the price falls or looking for deals elsewhere. Soler plus Ryu or another would still put them in the hunt for the Wild Card, I think. And we'll see how the young guys shake out so they can really get into gear next year.