I wasn't thinking about who do you realistically replace Lester with (in your projection, Ray). I was talking about Mills and Alzolay not being projectable yet as big league starters. This team, as I said, goes into full to-the-studs rebuild mode if either or both Alzolay or Mills end up being AAA pitchers at best.
And you can't tell if a guy is really topped out at AAA until you play him in the bigs for a year and watch his ERA blow up to 15 after three or four crucial outings, or watch as he can't find the strike zone for two months straight. We have no idea if Mills or Alzolay will have ERAs below 4, or above 8. The former, we compete. The latter, we start a 5-year rebuild cycle.
See what I mean? has nothing to do with the tiny incremental improvement you *might* get by replacing Lester with Ray. You're still betting the farm that Alzolay and Millls are not only major leaguers, but are better-than-average in their roles. Which is why the Cubs needed to turn some of their talent into MLB-ready pitching in the off-season in order to be sure to complete.
Which they did not. So, Theo is handing Rossy a team based on a roll of the dice on two untested starters.
-New Doug