I mean, yes and no. When the Nats signed Werth - obviously not the same caliber star but it was a star-level contract - they were still a year away (Harper wasn't even on the team). We might wish that wasn't the case but it might well be with the Phillies too. On the bright side, they improved 14 games with just modest FA moves, a new manager, and internal options, so who's to say they couldn't do that again? Pessimistically, you could sign three big FAs and still not add 14 wins if the pitching falls apart or a few guys backslide.
Manny's 26 years old. He's going to be here for 8-10 years. You can't bail on all your young position players and expect to have/afford a good team around him in four years.
But that's not the issue, I don't think. The issue is it's more likely than not that most of the Phillies young talent isn't of the caliber that the other recent World Series teams had, as Murphy wrote yesterday.
The trick is deciding who to dump and who to keep, and who you are willing to be wrong about in three years so long as you get an upgrade in the meantime.
Except it's probably not that hard. Franco's done. Hernandez is halfway out the door regardless. And with Kapler's approach you can sign 1 or 2 bats without actually giving up on guys like Herrera, Williams, Quinn and Crawford/Kingery (and if you do trade one of those it will be as part of a package for something good). Several of those guys may end up being bench players in the long run anyway.