"We acquired nine new players for our 25-man roster, and we were able to hang onto our top prospects, which is amazing really," assistant GM David Chadd said last month at TigerFest.
That applies prominently on the pitching side, where Spring Training will be an exercise in long-term evaluation for several arms.
"I've always said the best closers sometimes come from your own system, if you can create them," Avila said earlier this offseason. "And I do believe that in not trading some of these guys away, we may be able to come up with a really, really good one at some point down the stretch if needed, not to mention moving forward in future years.