I’m not so sure DD is fully to blame for not replacing Kimbrel and Kelly. I think the tightening on new spending began before DD left. Hell, DD almost traded Betts at the 2019 deadline. Does anyone think he wanted to do that any more or less than Bloom did?
That 2019 team still looked good on paper, but some extensions were about to kick in, arb raises accumulating and a farm that gave DD just Devers in 2017 and nothing on the horizon to temper the high-priced players need to fill out the 26 and 40 man roster in coming years. Not signing any RPers for 2019 was a clear sign of major changes coming.
IMO, JH looked at the state of the farm, the cost it would take to keep everybody or replace in kind via FAs was just going to get way too costly. I think that was the crux of the spat between JH and DD, along with some personal style issues.
The writing was on the wall, all along. The only realistic way we could have kept competing was to keep spending more and more, and I’m not just talking Betts. We lost more after K & K. Although Porcello had declined after his Cy Young, we lost him and others.
Although not known at the time, we were to see major injuries to Sale, Price, ERod and lesser injuries to Nate and others. Plus, Pedey was still on the books.