the point of the Article is that the new philosophy of McD might provide improved and sustainable long term results.
building a team with a few high priced splashy big names (all your eggs in one basket approach used by whaley on Sammy, dareus, McCoy, hughes, clay, cordy) is not as good as building a team by spreading the risk of injury and salary cap over a greater number of players.
trading down in the first round (like McD just did) is usually (but not always) better than paying a premium and trading up (like whaley did for Sammy).
McD has the luxury of thinking long term.......whaley acted like he was trying to live and keep his job for one more year at a time