You can win without stars, you just can't win with what they have now. You turn over 50% of the starting 8 without getting either of the megastars (Moustakas, Brantley, Segura, Cervelli, say) while also moving Hoskins to 1B and getting Kingery and Williams/Quinn to improve (and Herrera to bounce back) and that's not insignificant.
I still think the Phillies know a lot more about Machado then we do. And also this "Harper back to Nats" talk is classic Boras. Is he going to take less money from them? Doubt it. But just the rumor makes us nervous, which = giving Boras more of whatever he wants.
The problem with all of this is Harper is not going to sign until January and Machado may not sign for another 2-3 weeks. So what opportunities do you let go in the meantime?