Free agent spending sprees are like fad diets: The short-term results may be good, but you often end up in worse shape. The draft is the path to sustainable success — it’s the eating-well-and-exercising approach to team-building. But that doesn’t stop teams from binging in free agency when they have salary cap dollars burning a hole in their pocket.



The Giants are a case study in the yo-yo nature of free agent spending, as they dished out over $200 million in contracts during the 2016 offseason. That spending spree landed three All-Pros and got the team back to the playoffs for the first time in five years. But just three years later, two of those big-ticket signings have been traded and the team has won just eight games combined in the past two seasons.



That crash and burn led to the firing of general manager Jerry Reese during the 2017 season. Dave Gettleman has spent the past 19 months shedding most of Reese’s big contracts (while dishing...