They basically needed the pitching to collectively repeat 2023 while Vlad and Bo performed like stars at the same time. The former was never going to happen, and the latter has only happened once (2021). I guess it was possible (85+ wins), but not very probable unless a lot of things broke right. The run differential is a very accurate assessment of this team's talent level right now. It's not a good team by any metric.
As far as Rogers being morons, they bid against themselves and gave a 1B $500M. That's on top of essentially giving Ross Atkins a blank check to spend into the upper tier of the entire sport. This is an ownership group that didn't want to add a dime to the 2014 payroll at the trade deadline when the Jays were actually in a playoff spot, but gave Atkins the green light to save the Guardians $110M over 5 years by absorbing Gimenez and Straw's contracts. I think questioning their baseball intelligence is fair, although as an ownership group in general they are good (high payroll).