The way this team absolutely caught fire in June should also show just how close this team was to being good. If they had managed to be just "bad" or even mediocre in July, they could be buyers now in the heat of the race. They collapsed epically, of course, but it took a lot of injuries and individual player collapses for that to happen. The plan, I think, was to build a team that had a chance to win 93 games if things broke right. And it almost worked, but didn't. Oh well.
I didn't expect much this year anyway, so I see no reason not to think that the team, overall, is heading in the right direction.