I think JD was different for the reasons I stated above. He came into spring with a totally different swing that year and they simply overlooked it. Detroit jumped on him and he tore up AAA and didn’t stop once they called him up.
He didn’t “figure it out” somewhere else. He figured it out while they still had him, and they still released him.
Hindsight is 20/20 and they’ve done a great job overall, but that was a real mistake on their part to not notice and/or believe in the changes he made.