Hey, I think a lot of us now realize that Avila had an eye for talent, but no idea about the right way or staff to develop the talent. If Al had the current method/coaches, some of the guys that missed, might not have missed.
I worried that it was both not recognizing AND not developing because the track record for position players going all the way back to Randy Smith was dismal. That includes Dombrowski who painted over his failures with fat contracts and a desperate-to-win owner. We all bemoan Chris Illitch as cheap, but hold on - he is spending, but not really on the payroll side of it. They are taking a bit of the Rays approach, but they can't go full Rays because Tiger fans would not tolerate it the way the limited Tampa fanbase does. If they get close, I mean 1 or 2 players away, he may spend the money to go for it. We're just nowhere near that right now. I know we have Max, Kevin, Thayron and Bryce on the way, but we need to be honest with ourselves - if we go 2 for 4 there, we're doing better than most teams would. Best case is probably 1 player is a star and 2 of those other 3 are serviceable major leaguers. Wish it wasn't like that, but it pretty much is.