They are obviously not going to tank in the next two years. They might have to in July of 2022 (though I don't believe there will be baseball in July of 2022). Bohm is probably the only player you keep if so. And Harper, of course, unless he wants to leave.
This team wasn't supposed to be scraping for the second wild card (i.e. 5th place) by now though. Can it be a legit NLCS contender over the next two seasons? Hard to see it, even with a big checkbook. On the other hand the team we have right now would be winning the division pretty handily with a bullpen. I think that failure is largely a quirk of the short season, they would have had three months to sort it out instead of three weeks in a normal season, and they'd also have a month to see if the new guys could get back on track.
But the standard Middleton supposedly set when he fired Kapler was not matched by his rhetoric about the luxury tax. If we wanted to win the NL East they should have paid the freight. If they wanted to make some noise this October they should have added another arm to start these doubleheaders, and possibly a bench piece too. Instead we look headed for about the same record as Kapler had (while also being matched by Kapler's Giants team), perhaps with the same injury excuse.
Once they sign JT and hand out money to another pitcher - the Howard injury makes that pretty certain - they'll be all-in again. Probably the current front office isn't changing this year but if it does I doubt they'll hire someone who wants to tear it down.
The problem is they are on the fence. They need to win, but they won't spend enough money nor can they trade away limited future depth to get over the hump.
