I vote luck. If Avila knew enough of what he was doing to earn credit for it, he wouldn’t have gotten pantsed on so many drafts, trades, and free agent signings.
That said, getting anything of value from a 26th-rounder is probably always luck.
The idea that we were already liquidating top prospects for middling veterans before we even hit the .500 mark had to be a last straw for thousands of fans.