My usual response:
http://worldseriesdreaming.com/2011/12/22/why-prospects/
Even shitty teams have stretches of "winning" in a 162-game season. That doesn't mean they're awesome. It just means the odds are evening out.
Thanks Rice, link answered all of my questions and then some...the final portion in particular as follows:
"Not every team can afford a $150MM payroll all the time. The Cubs can, but there’s a more efficient way to do business and baseball. If you can save money by growing the team in-house, you should do it. In the above example, would you rather pay Dustin Pedroia $113MM for his $113MM of value, or just $12MM? When you look at the money spent in the draft, most teams spend about $10-$15MM and rarely more than that to get 40 or so players to sign. If even one of them can give you a solid future, that is a great investment. In contrast, it’ll cost more than $20MM a year to get Prince Fielder. Ignoring situation and circumstance and just looking at value, would you rather spend that $20MM getting 40 guys, 2-5 of whom will provide much more value over their cost-controlled years than Fielder; or would you just say “screw it” and give that money to Prince Fielder anyway?
The goal here is to set up a system where the Cubs can do both. They can spend $20MM in the draft (probably less with the new CBA, but still not bad) to get a shot at good prospects, and then with the knowledge that they have cost-controlled production in the pipeline, go after free agents like Fielder (or equivalent in the future) to fill in the gaps. It makes sense to me. It at least gives you hope that guys like Brett Jackson will pan out and save the Cubs some money in the next few years, right?".
