I don’t see how Avila left this franchise in substantially better shape after he was ****canned than Randy Smith did. At best, it was the same, as far as I can tell. Even those vaunted slam-dunk everyone-else-woulda-taken-them-too draft picks Avila selected, like Mize and Manning, aren’t guaranteed at this point to be any better than Jeff Weaver and Kenny Baugh were thought in 2002 to become. Riley (#4 prospect in Baseball America in 2022) and TORK! (#5 BA 2022) might end up being better sticks than Carlos Peña (#5 BA 2002) whom Randy Smith left us—might be—but again, no guarantee. Even if they are, otherwise, the system Avila left behind is, at best, no less a shambles than the system Randy Smith left. I think in practical terms, the comparison between the two is a push.