Option #4: The Front Office realizes they are still a year away given Nelson's injury and current state of the SP on the farm. As such, they aren't willing to sink $ into players (Cobb) that may have their results replicated by Burnes, Woodruff, Ortiz as soon as 2019 as well as possibly precluding them from extending Shaw, Arcia, etc... If Nelson's injury never occurred, then perhaps the Brewers may have taken the dive and signed Alex Cobb to have Nelson-Anderson-Cobb to compete with Scherzer-Strasburg-Gonzalez or Darvish-Quintana-Hendricks or Kershaw-Hill-Wood. However, with Nelson's injury, the addition of Cobb still likely leaves the Brewers an elite arm short of being able to realistically beat any of the aforementioned in a 5 or 7 game series. While I don't agree or disagree, I think this is the Brewers FO opinion of where they stand in 2018.