AF...what you seem unable to grasp is that even if its 2-3 hundred thousand dollars [I believe its more] its still a sea change in terms of organizational philosophy and thats what is most important to me. Heck, under Monty/Giles we lost JD Drew because they philosophically could not budge on what they believed were organizational and professional baseball standards and I could make the case that this non signing set the team back 5 years.
Gillick moved the philosophical radar screen several notches to the 21st Century but financially there still seemed this strange, almost archaic refusal to spend even a penny more internationally than they had to, preferring to trust that Uncle Sal would unearth hidden gems, Which he did.
But my thought, and I believe others agree with this thought process, was that if Sal could find 5 gems with $200,000, how many more gems could he find if he was given $400,000...or $500,0000 or, gasp, a million more?
It does seem that McPhail/Klentak understand this and are using the avenues available to them now to see if they can't give Sal more money.
You may call it "funny money" but I prefer to call it " reasonable risk resources."