Have you seen some of these contender's 4 and 5 starters?
Yes, Perez and Richards haved sucked recently, but theirs have sucked all year and longer, and most GMs don't look at just your recent 6-8 starts to definitively value anybody.
Then, there are GMs and organizations who think they see a tweak they can make to a pitcher to improve them.
I'm talking about paying maybe all but a bit more than minimum wage to the other team.
You do know we signed Richards for $10M after not showing he was healthy for like 6 years. Now he's healthy.
We signed Perez to $6M after some pretty awful numbers in 2020.
It's not like GMs don't ever add marginally better players.
I'm not looking for anything in return. We could even do an Ottavinoe type trade or two to lessen the amount of money we'd pay:
Richards and Rosario for $2M or less in salary relief.
Perez, Wilson and Potts for $1.5M or less in salary relief.