Cruz had a wRC+ of 134 last year, good for 19th amongst qualified hitters. You are ignoring park factors and the fact that his peripherals suggest he didn’t really fall off that much last year. But I know Balta, everything with you is linear and whatever happened the year before is predictive of the next. Let’s just ignore his massive BABIP drop and assume he’ll continue to decline so much that he’ll somehow be worse than Palka next year. While anything is possible, the odds are high that Cruz is a significantly better hitter than Palka next year. Steamer has his wRC+ projected to be 34 points higher. I can totally understand the argument against adding Cruz, but trying to rationalize it based on production is bat shit crazy.
And for the millionth god damn time, $10M to any free agent will have zero impact on our ability to land Machado.