Little Green Yoda
Member
You're always going to have diminishing returns when the superstars are getting $25M+ per year while pre-arb superstars in the making make less than a million per year. That in itself isn't the issue. The problem lies when a team starts spending frivolously because they think they can outspend any mistakes they make. It's one thing to have a safety net with a large payroll - testing that safety net time and time again is where you get yourself into trouble.
The poster child for high payrolls in baseball would be the Yankees - they reeled off 4 championships in 5 years during the late 90s and have been competitive every season in recent memory. It helps that the players they invested in have turned out well (Rivera, Jeter, Petitte, Sabathia, and pre-extension ARod). There's probably a couple stinkers in there that I'm not remembering though.
