You're kidding, right?
THAT is what you're talking about? The "gaslighting," is because the owner has said their goal is to win a championship. That somehow morphed in your head so they're "gaslighting" the fanbase and some promise about making big moves to compete with the larger market teams?
I don't really know how to even respond to this seriously at this point. You're effectively saying that Aaron Rodgers "lied" or was "gaslighting" the fans when HE said he wanted to win another Super Bowl and that was his primary goal...or for that matter, really any player.
You understand their plan to win is to be continually competitive and due to the high variation and luck involved in baseball...such as Soto getting a hit vs Hader and the ball going under Grisham's glove, the disproportionate number of extremely hard-hit balls last year vs AZ that were LD outs vs the bloopers they turned into runs on their way to a World Series appearance).
You seem to be using "gaslighting," in the wrong context. Not sure how else to put it, it just sounds kinda ridiculous.
But ok, so he said his goal is to win a WS(the same as every owner, GM, player, manager). I've also asked repeatedly what this move that he's "refusing" to do would be...but I'm not even sure I want the answer to that after I got this answer.
It's really simple. They're trying to win by being good every year. Simply put, that gives you the best chance to win. The teams that really "went for it," were the CC team and then the Grinke/Marcum team and they didn't have all that much more to show for it, but they were both certainly worse following those respective seasons and had no chance to win a Title the following years.