Honestly they did NOT have 'overwhelming' talent last year. Lucroy was average, Betancourt and McGehee were AWFUL, Weeks got hurt, Morgan had a good BA, but the offense was lacking from CF as well. The bullpen other than Axford (who was a question mark prior to the season) wasn't all that spectacular pre K-Rod. Post K-Rod RR had to deal with the 'who's the closer' issue, and he handled that well. The rotation on paper was borderline amazing, I will give you that. But Gallardo struggled to start the year, Greinke was hurt then struggled for the rest of the first half, Marcum had his issues in the end, Wolf was good, and Narveson was what he is, average. He got hurt as well. My point is while it was a good team, nothing was guaranteed for them, Boston level talent or even Phillies level talent last year, and as you could see with Boston, there's no awards for pre-season talent level.