Or they knew the situation wasn’t great but they weren’t willing to pay what was needed for a meaningful upgrade. Quality 3rd basemen are hard to find right now
Only 11 teams have a wRC+ better than league average from their 3rd basemen. It’s not just bad teams struggling to get production from the position: NYM (77 wRC+), LAD (69), CHC (57), PHI (51)
Durbin has gotten off to a nice start. We’ll see where he settles in, but we don’t need him to do much more than hover near league average