Originally Posted by
Enscheff
Buying a FA gets a team more immediate certainty at the beginning of the deal. Signing Lester got the Cubs a good pitcher that season, and they will be stuck paying a declining pitcher more than he is worth at the end of the deal. They can afford to buy that (relative) short term certainty at the cost of wasting money at the end of the deal.
The Braves can not afford to waste money at the end of deals. They are never going to be able to afford a Top 5 payroll. So they have to take on more risk early by relying on young players who will never be wasted money (they can just be released), but might not be productive in the present.
Risk now, or risk later. Since a win now is worth more than a win later, it makes sense to push risk back...if you can afford it. The Cubs can. The Braves can't. The Dodgers can. They Indians can't. The Yankees can. The Rays can't.
Over time, teams with the financial advantage have a clear and decisive competitive advantage. The saber movement allowed low revenue teams to close that gap by being smarter with player valuations, but now that the rich teams are getting even smarter than the original smart teams, that advantage is gone. Teams like the Dodgers, Cubs and Yankees took the Rays and A's game plans, injected 10x the money into it, and are now even better than they were 10 years ago.