Absolutely I do. how could a team with the quality of players of Sale, Quintana, Abreu and Eaton all locked up for years to come at a grand total of only about $40M a year in a team that plays in the large market of Chicago in a division against small market teams not be close to competing?

It's absolutely appalling to me how they were not able to put together a better team in 2014-2016 around these guys, just crap signings and trades left and right. But yes, even after 2016 I was still optimistic, the tigers and royals were clearly in a downtrend, we still had all these guys locked up for years for cheap and we had just won 78 games, Tim Anderson was looking very promising. It wouldn't have been that hard to add a couple pieces that off-season and be legitimately competitive. And they tear it up, are you kidding me, couldn't spend just a little bit more. it was a fucking joke and I will not easily forget it.

I recognize there were issues with the clubhouse culture with a couple of those guys but really if that was seen as the problem the easy fix was just get a new manager and bench coach. which was a good idea regardless because Ventura was awful.