Wanting to reduce spending is one thing. Outright lying to the fan base that they can't afford to keep everyone is another. Take the Patriots for example. They have a budget that Kraft has them operate under. They don't spend crazy on most free agents or big names, but nobody gives them crap for it. The Sox go out and spend bad money, then cry poor afterwards, and that's the problem. Nobody in their right mind here insisted you wasted money bringing in Panda, yet here he was. Why? Because they wanted to make a splash. Same thing with Price. Nobody in the fan base insisted they sign him to the deal they did. You did that on your own. You wanted to have a buzz around the team. Now you want to give a way assets on the actual roster to get out from underneath your bad deal? Uh no. GFYS.
Well, getting Panda and Hanley and trying to make the team better has got to be a good thing, right? You could criticize them for going after the names they went after (Panda is a prime example) and how they spent the money, but their intentions were not wrong.
Every team works in circles, even the huge market New York Yankees. Look at their spending when they weren't contending a few years ago. They took a step back and went into re-tooling mode.
We will do the same: One step back to take two steps forward. When the Yanks eventually get Cole, it may not matter anyway next season. That's why it could make total sense to trade Mookie...even if we were willing to give him a record-breaking deal. We could still do that in free agency and get him back.