Suppose we sign someone like Price. There are various scenarios about the contract. Scherzer got 210M over 7 years. I'm guessing Price would command the same. Maybe backloaded like Scherzer.
Let's look at a backloaded scenario. Effectively, this would mark a reversal of what the team has done so far. For example in the Johnson-Swisher-Bourn trade we sacrificed some of the 2016 budget to free up money for 2017. Signing Price to a backloaded deal would allow us to add more than the 4 WAR that I'm assuming we can get for 25-30M. It would improve the team from one that currently projects 75-80 wins to one that projects to win 80-85 games in 2016. There is a cost of course to a backloaded deal which is that you get less bang for the buck in subsequent years.
Even in a non-backloaded scenario, the best bang for the buck comes in the early years before the aging curve starts to catch up to Price. So maybe it is a bargain in 2016-2017, neutral in 2018-2019 and a drag on the teams changes in the last 2 or 3 years. A non-backloaded deal would also imply that virtually all of our spare budget would be tied up in Price. To create any additional budget we would have to deal away some players making meaningful salaries.
It could also be that I'm underestimating how much spare budget we have in 2016. So signing Price might leave us with some additional money to spend. In a scenario where we have more money, the question has to be asked whether we would be better off spending that kind of money on a hitter or spreading it out in a different way rather than going for Price.