Well, they obviously spent quite a bit on Mas, got screwed over by Acquadro on a few riders, and lost two leaders, so having lost a lot of their more experienced helpers like Castroviejo, the Izagirres, Plaza, the Herradas, Sutherland and Javi Moreno over the last few years as well as some of their replacements like Sütterlin and Dowsett, they've kind of been in the position of having to replenish the support corps.
Usually Unzué likes to use retreads, riders he knows from before (Karpets, Dani Moreno, Rubén Plaza) and cut-price flyers on riders who are either regressing looking for one last hurrah (Bruseghin, Moreau, Gadret, Szmyd) or whose stars have waned and come cheaper than their talent as a result (Rujano, Cobo, Betancur), and they've tended to only turn over a few at a time from their own youth systems or periodically raiding Caja Rural for prospects, which means almost all of the young riders they bring in are either Spaniards or Latin Americans or the occasional rider from outside that's appeared at Lizarte.
This offseason is the one that said wholesale change was required, though and a gambling on youth was overdue. They moved on from 2 leaders who would typically have a bit of time left as leaders in the team, and they also lost some of the riders who were supposed to be the next guys coming through, like Rubén Fernández, and who genuinely were the next guys coming through, like Carapaz. But I think the big difference maker is Andrey Amador. I think Unzué is genuinely wounded by that one. I thought he was a lifer, like Txente, Lastras, and to a lesser extent Guti and Rojas. He came across from Costa Rica into Abarcá's feeder system, he rode a couple of months with Viña Magna before riding two years with Lizarte, turned pro with Abarcá and had been there for 13 years. He was there through thick and thin. The constant bleeding of them for talents by Sky/Ineos has been an issue for several years, obviously, and I'm not sure Sky have taken more riders from a single source other than the UK espoir scene than they have from Movistar over the years (Urán, Zandio, Kiryienka, David López, Intxausti, Castroviejo, Carapaz and Amador)... but most of them weren't part of the furniture in Egüés like Amador was. Urán was still young. Carapaz had come through Lizarte, but he was 23 when he came to Europe so he had only been part of Movistar for 3 years. The others had been picked up at various points in their career after reasonably long time spent elsewhere. But Amador? Urán and Carapaz might have been bigger names at the time, but the only thing Sky/Ineos have taken from Movistar that will have been a deeper wound than Amador would be the Pinarello contract. That will have really, really hurt the team. Abarcá and Pinarello was an unbreakable pact. They'd been riding Pinarello, unbroken, since Ángel freaking Arroyo was their team leader. Go look at the pictures from Laguía's record-setting Vuelta KOMs in the 80s, from Delgado's Tour, from Indurain's Tours, Giri and Hour Record, through Zülle, Olano, Jiménez, Mancebo, Menchov, Pereiro, Valverde... always Pinarello.
Either way, they have absolutely plundered the youth ranks for whoever they can get that isn't already with Acquadro, because they've realised that if they're to succeed in that world with him on the blacklist they've got to scout smarter, like Quick Step do. Canyon probably want a bit more of a multi-national team too. They've picked up riders in styles they ordinarily wouldn't look at, too, which is an unusual departure, like Jacobs. There are new signings who are 24 or under, and of those only two (Norsgaard and Samitier) have been contracted to a team in the top two levels other than as a stagiare. Two more (Elosegui and Rubio) haven't been on any professional teams at all before. In addition to them, they've also signed a prospective team leader who has only just turned 25.
The team also has another three riders (Arcas, Carretero and Erviti) who have never known professional cycling other than with Abarcá, one (Pedrero) who has spent less than half a season elsewhere, and two more (Valverde and Rojas) who have been at the team for more than 12 years. And yet, they can't find helpers. They are having an absolute disaster of finding rouleur helpers and, without meaning to be disparaging, the signings of Mora and Albert Torres have that touch of desperation. It perhaps doesn't - the team has taken flyers on its rouleur helpers before, such as when they signed Eloy Teruel after 3 years of no professional road racing, and Carlos Oyarzún after a surprising (and later, it turned out, suspicious) turn of pace in the Worlds ITT. But Mora and Torres are 32 and 30 respectively; both are track specialists, and last year was Mora's first at the ProContinental level after bouncing around road teams for years including a stint in Japan and two years in the British domestic scene, while Torres has bounced around doing the Caribbean scene with Inteja, racing Morocco and all kinds of other interesting stuff, but the last - and only - time he entered a race at the .HC level or above was when he was a stagiare for Androni Giocattoli and entered Paris-Bruxelles... in 2012! Now, he was able to complete races like the Volta a Portugal, and he isn't going to be leant on for results, but with the flat stage team consisting of neo-pros, veteran track specialists, Jorge Arcas, Lluís Más, Imanol Erviti and Nelson Oliveira, it's a bit of a drop off from a few years ago with Bennati, Ventoso, Castroviejo, Dowsett, Sutherland, Malori (until his horrific accident, obviously that was not something they could help) and the able all-terrain engines like Lastras, Plaza, the Izagirres and so on. Oliveira and Erviti are the last ones left, and Erviti is now 36 and won't be doinig this forever.
One suspects that the previously fairly low value of neo-pros is being pushed up considerably as teams compete over riders to get onto their roster from the word go, whereas a few years ago they would pick out the riders from their development systems or trusted youth and espoir teams, your first contract would be a low level one unless you were a prospective superstar (and even then, somebody who was an instant hit like Peter Sagan turned pro at 19, if he'd had his 2010 and 2011 seasons but was only facing U23 riders, he'd have got a bigger first contract than the one he was being paid for those seasons, but he probably got a bigger 2nd contract because of having faced pros so successfully on his cheaper first contract). Nowadays, with teams pilfering riders from other teams' development to save on doing their own development, and signing up every wonderkid going, teams are having to get in there first to stand a chance of getting hold of any of these kids before they suddenly need to pay them the big bucks - say what you will about Sky/Ineos, but they were smart - teams like BMC and Katyusha came in with big budgets and threw their money at a handful of people who were already at the top. Sky/Ineos threw a lot of money at the top guys, sure, but they also made clear to buy themselves the next generation of stars, so if you want to compete with them, you've got to get to those riders before they do, which is increasingly difficult when they've got a direct dial to the most cut-throat agent and more money than you. It's a bit easier if you're Quick Step because they have focus on areas of the calendar that Sky aren't as bothered about, but Movistar are competing largely across the same set of races, and have been seen as the main foil to Sky for a few years, only they're now being usurped for that role as well as Jumbo continue to strengthen and now have a more fearsome GC hydra-head than Movistar could have dreamed to line up even if they'd kept their lineup from last year intact.
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