Ilitch spent big on Javier Baez, well over $100 million, so there’s precedent for spending on players.
Ilitch has also spent big on baseball infrastructure, which was badly dilapidated. Coaching, development, data science and technology, top talent in all back office and on-field facets, things like that. It’s the kind of boring but necessary investment that pay dividends by allowing us to be competitive using our newfound abilities without having to throw hundreds of millions at players to cover the holes in the system.
So why hasn’t Ilitch been spending on both infrastructure and players? Two reasons related to each other that I can think of: (1) We haven’t been at the stage of development where a top free agent puts us over the top. We’ve been a 70-75-win team, and spending $200 million on the shiniest object on the free agent market would not even get us to .500 in that scenario, which would make everyone, including you, unhappy; and (2) players who can command $200 million have the luxury of bypassing a 70-75-win team in flyover land and focusing on 90+-win teams in the very top markets, which is why they called it agency.
I’m not sold at all on going after Bergman. I don’t think of him as the last piece of the puzzle.