Well, that leads me to wonder what the goal is, then?
Is it pinching Wyc's pennies?
Or is it winning another banner?
Personally, when I look at Danny's body of work, I see a lot more of last summer in his pre-2007 work than I do any of the signs of gratuitous genius that he's apparently been rewarded with for tapping into the Seattle and Minny fire sales in 2007.
It seems a little brazen, frankly, to assume that you can pry the appropriate pieces out of the market every February.
It is to maintain a team that competes for championships for as long as possible, while still staying financially viable.
I certainly understand how you feel that it is penny-pinching, but I disagree.
I think this summer Danny saw a team that was going to improve in other areas enough that they could still be as good, if not better than last years team, even without Posey (and so far that has proven true). Because of this, he was able to set a value on Posey, based on the future financial (and cap) flexibility of the team, and the potential of Posey still being worth anything close to the contract at the end of it, and stick to it.
I think he also looked at the rest of the league, and decided that there was a good chance they would be able to bring in reinforcements later in the year, and that there would likely be better options through trades and Free agents in February and March than there were available in July and August. And if not, they still have enough fire-power to be a championship contender, if not favorite.
I really think people are forgetting that this team is 28-5, and just set the record for the best start in the history of the entire league. Yeah, it would be nice if they had a better bench, and they were 34-2 right now...but lets not get carried away here. If by not signing Posey, Danny made the C's "arguably" the best team in the league, instead of "hands down" the best team in the league, we may be getting a little greedy here.
So yeah, I don't think he is being brazen at all, I just think he was taking a calculated risk, based on the fact that they were good enough to still challenge for the title even if it didn't work out.