You hit the nail on the head, BCU. The criticisms of Doug Melvin are always along the lines of he should have traded for X before they broke out and should have traded Y before they regressed. The thing is, of the many people with sentiment few if any were actually calling for these moves when they should have happened. Another favorite of mine is that he shouldn't have spent money on Suppan, Riske, Cameron, and Hall so we could make a splash in free agency. Essentially, the argument is that we shouldn't have added these bad contracts in the past (or a good one in the case of Cameron), so we could add one in the present (signing Derek Lowe or acquiring Scott Kazmir for example). The reality is that we cannot expect to build a team through big trades and free agent acquisitions. We need to rely on the draft and trades for mid-tier prospects. Melvin has already made some moves of this type acquring guys like Chris Cody and Josh Butler. I'm certain will see similar moves this offseason involving someone like McGehee, Hart, or Hardy.