As I compared this team often to the 2008 Tigers ($40M increase in payroll to disastrous results) , they did manage to get to a competitive state (albeit quite lucky to be in the Central). It helps that they got some unreal value out of Verlander and we don't appear to have anything like that ready but still I think what they have to do is build off of the base of EE, Bautista, Lawrie, Reyes, Dickey, Morrow and go back to trying to find some value somewhere. I don't really think AA is the guy to get it done but he's fell into some deals before, maybe it can happen again.