The A-Rod and Griffey deals are so far in the past, they no longer haunt the team.
The departure of A-Rod freed up money for Boone, Ichiro and Olerud. True, we could have gotten some players via a trade, but A-Rod did help get us to the ALCS in 2000 and helped pave the way for the 116 wins in 2001.
The biggest problem we had was holding onto guys like Wilson, Edgar and Buhner past their primes. While it may have helped merchandise sales, it didn't do much in the continued success of the franchise. We didn't give ourselves a chance to slowly work in younger players and led to some bone head moves to try and give these guys a chance at one more run at a world title. Sending out Guillen and bringing in Aurillia was just one of the dumber moves.
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