First off can we agree not all “rentals” are equal? Machado is not your average mlb player. People should focus more on who the player is. Instead all some focus on is the fact that his contract is up after this year. Additionally, just because Machado would have been a rental doesn’t automatically make it a bad deal. CC Sabathia was a rental. How many people are complaining about that trade? It all depends on who you give up for him and even then it’ll take years to know how good of a trade it turned out to be. I don’t think anyone would have argued we should have traded Hiura and Burnes to get Machado. But we do have some decent talent that, in all honestly, probably won’t make an impact at the major league level. So trading those guys, while it may hurt our system ranking, really wouldn’t have much of an effect on the franchise. I don’t know what was offered to get Machado. But I’d have been perfectly ok moving the Woodruffs, the Gatewoods, the Laras, the Diplans or the Ponces of the system to get him. if the dodgers did get machado then they will become the NL WS team. If the brewers didnt step up then its hard to see where we fit in with the 2018 playoff seen. We are only 1 game from being out of the WC spot but our bullpen is worn out since our starting pitching cant go thru a lineup 3 times. It might be time to think about 2019. Shore up the team with a controllable Ace like Defrom but im not sure a starting pitcher rental helps us.