I didn't say it was a virtue. I said he fucked over the organization. The same thing Crane is doing now. At least, Crane finally saw the light with Tucker and we flipped him for premium assets, but consdering how shitty our farm system is and the lack of a quality bench guys it would have made more sense to do what they did with Tucker with Correa and Bregman as well. The Astros should never be buying FAs that are attached to the QO, unless Crane plans on spending into the tax, since he's not, it's stupid to throw away draft picks for aging vets. You could have easily brought home Goldschmidt on a one year deal. You could have easily added Tauchaman to add MLB depth to the OF.
The Astros last competitive year under McLane was 2008, which we all remember us getting fucked over by the Hurricane Ike. That team had Lance in his prime (6.9 WAR), Tejada (1.9), Wigginton (2.2), Lee(2.8), and Pence(2.3). Hell even Matsui put up (1.3) in limited PT. Roy won 17 games and Valverde saved 44 but the rest of the pitching staff wasn't that great.
The day before Ike, the Astros were riding a hot streak of 14-1. After Harvey, they limped to a 6-8 record to finish in 3rd place 3.5 games behind the WC Brewers. They also would have been the last WC under the current set-up. That was the end of their window.