Well, I thoroughly lost my password and had to create a new account. I pretty much concur with the consensus here - NH obviously does not have a plan, and while his hands are tied in a couple of ways, it's not enough of an excuse.
In my opinion we should absolutely, 100% be trading Cole, especially if his market is high. The whole situation is a clusterf***, so I'd say just trade Cole for what you can get. The ideal return in my eyes would be Frazier and one of Adams or Sheffield. Andujar is appealing as well, and makes for a more obvious fit if it's him plus one of the pitchers, but I don't think it's too pessimistic on our own players to say that Frazier would become the second best OF, assuming Cutch is gone. There are too many questions around Meadows and Polanco to just rely on them.
I don't expect Cole to continue having massive HR problems (though in the Yankees stadium...), but I also don't expect him to fully rebound his value. So getting two excellent pieces for him as the start of either of full-going rebuild, or more likely, a partial rebuild and a partial re-tooling, makes the most sense to me. We are simply not good enough to compete in 2018, barring some really unforseen things happening. If we do end up competing, the substance of the core is still under team control for longer. The outliers, who are obviously also still part of this substance, are Cole and Cutch, as well as Harrison to some extent.
I like the idea of trying for Panik from the Giants, even though their prospects are a hot mess. I love Cutch, but there's no rational option that involves him staying here past the trade deadline. My work-in-progress approach is trade Cole now, then explore the situation for both Cutch and Harrison: if we get Frazier, be more aggressive in Cutch trade talks, and if not, be willing to start the season with him. Trading Cole weirdly opens up a more interesting situation with the pitching, since even though it will not be good on paper or in the field, it gives some more time during the season to see who among Kuhl, Williams, Glasnow, etc., might claim a more permanent spot.
Eventually, maybe you end up with this by later in the season:
Marte CF
Panik 2B
Frazier LF
Bell 1B
Polanco RF
Harrison 3B
Mercer SS
Cervelli C
Taillon, Sheffield, Nova, Williams, Kuhl
The ordering is just to get them out there. Depending on what happens with the pitching, you have Keller likely knocking on the door, Glasnow presumably either having a role or being a bust, and maybe a dark horse, plus whatever happens with the latter two (maybe Glasnow or somebody else claims one of those spots, revert to bullpen for the other, etc). If numerous young pitchers are emerging, then maybe Nova brings back something of value at the deadline as well, and so on.
I don't really see another approach- we have to try and bring in some more controllable options, and hope that as more time passes, the core re-solidifies again with some new blood. Right now it seems like we're just going to continue waiting and seeing, but since we have to do that no matter what with a whole slew of players--Polanco, Glasnow, Williams/Kuhl/Brault, Meadows, Harrison--we might as well play the few cards we have in Cole and Cutch. The only "retool without trade" option is something like trying to sign Darvish and/or Frazier, which is more obviously not happening.