You realize I said I didn't care about dumping Castro right? My issue is using the money on old players on their absolute last legs.
How does that limit them? They literally signed Lackey for 2 years and 4 years on Zobrist is hardly franchise changing. I mean your post made it sound as though they'd dealt away a lot of their youth for a ride with crusty old vets. If Zobrist is shit, you still have Baez. If Baez is shit you still have Alcantara. If Alcantara is shit you still have a number of guys down the line. And all they've committed on the two is $30 mil. Would you have preferred Zimmermann at $22 mil/season and whatever you can get for $8 mil? You're sort of banking on them being bad when in Lackey's case he's coming off a pretty decent year and if you prorate Zobrist year over a full season it's not really bad either.
To me it comes down to the fact that there aren't a lot of lead off hitters out there. Last year one of the reasons they specifically traded for Fowler was to be that lead off hitter. Most of the comments at the time were lukewarm on Fowler. Only 46 players last season had an OBP over .350. The list of FA who meet that criteria are Jason Heyward and Ben Zobrist. If we expand it slightly you get Dexter Fowler(.346). If we expand it to names in trade talks it's Brett Gardner(.343), Ben Revere(.342), and Ender Inciarte(.338). That's the list. No one else as far as I'm aware is rumored to be on the market.
That doesn't leave you a lot of options. You can make an argument for anyone on that list I think and from the reports the cubs may still be after Heyward. But as for the others vs Zobrist, it basically comes down to cost in players or money in the case of Fowler. Fowler's going to get more money than Zobrist. It's just a matter of how much. And as for the trade candidates, I think if all went well Inciarte is a guy i would have liked to have had but he obviously was dealt away for Miller.
As for Lackey, I mean it seems pretty obvious this series of moves relied on that move being cheap. If you sign say Zimmermann for $22 mil/season Zobrist doesn't happen and you're probably having to trade for someone. And maybe Zobrist and Lackey just end up old and not useful but it's not always that simple. Zobrist in particular has a game that's decently well insulated from aging. If we compare Zobrist to say Ichiro, Zobrist walks a bit more but both are low k hitters without much power. Ichiro from 35-38 was 5.4 fWAR, 4.7 fWAR, 0 and 2.6. The 0 largely had to do with his defense falling off a cliff that year.
