It's still early and there's a lot of winter left, but the angst from some over not finding an impact bat in free agency puts me in mind of 2003-04. That's when we signed Ivan Rodriguez after he'd painted himself in a corner demanding 4/40. No one else, including the Marlins, was going to give him that, so once it became apparent we were the only team that was going to offer it, he basically had to take it.
But once he got here, had a really good year, and was the face of a team that improved by almost 30 wins, I think that might have helped pave the way for more top free agents to sign with us, including Maggs and Troy Percival for the following season, and Kenny Rogers and Todd Jones for the season after that.
They didn't all work out swimmingly, of course, but point is they were all toward the top of their free agent class, and I do wonder, had we not signed Pudge for 2004, would we have gotten those other free agents at that time?