Mas declaring they were fighting for the 4th in GC...
Perfectly reasonable. They had nearly 2 minutes to gain to do that, but Martin was dropped, and isolated, whereas Mas had a teammate. A pajará can happen to anybody. Somebody up front takes an illegal feed or something else to cop a time penalty and that 4th might become a podium, and so on. Manoeuvring yourself into position so that if something goes awry for the obvious best, you're the one that profits is a skill in and of itself.
Movistar supported him at the Giro and he was supposed to lead them at the Vuelta, until he injured himself in a criterium that his team didn't want him riding in the first place. They might not have shown enormous trust in him but he seriously let them down in the Vuelta before jumping ship.
Well, the other thing was that they weren't given the chance to negotiate with him. You can say that they didn't show enormous trust in him, but Acquadro had already signed him up with Ineos before that Giro. It was already rumoured back in March last year and known as pretty much a done deal before the Giro. Movistar did right by him in the Giro and felt they had earned the right to at least get the chance to match the Ineos offer and, as the team that had brought him over to Europe and developed him, felt they deserved to get the final word even if Ineos' bids took it above what they were willing to pay and they had to let him go. Acquadro didn't give them that chance, and then to add insult to injury you got that situation at the Vuelta with him injuring himself and letting them down to end things on a sour note.
yeah pathetic, they just needed to give him one more climber and he would have finished it, kwiatkowski or Moscon would have been enough
Here's the problem: you say they needed to give him one more climber, but you named two ATVs. The guys they gave him who are real climbers were Sosa and Froome, but Froome was clearly not in anything like peak shape and Sosa was woeful, and the best guy he had was another ATV, Amador. He didn't need to have an extra climber in the lineup, he needed one of the two they brought to be at least half decent.