The battles of baseball are like life.
Maybe too much like life these days for some. Sports, in my opinion at least, should be about getting away from life for a while...at least as a fan, as a spectator. Different obviously for those on the inside.
So how is 'Cheering for Wallets' and 'Best Bank Account Wins' better than 'Shrewdest Management Wins'?
At least it's then a contest of identifiable skill...next stop on that continuum is "Best Players Win" - hey! that's actually what we are cheering for...the farther you go down that line, the closer you get to the reasons that most watch sports.
And I suppose that's what I'm getting at...the reasons I watch sports: I can (not really, but my fandom can) hold accountable an executive, or a GM for not capitalizing on the intricacies of the rules surrounding "cap-ology", or drafting the wrong players, or hiring a coach that can't control the clubhouse, or any number of things that are somewhat measurable and have direct influence on the outcomes of the games themselves. I can't get upset at my team, or management, if the 82 year old owner of a team down the block decides to blow his kid's inheritance and outspend every one else to a "championship". There's no rule against it, sure, and it could also backfire - I get that - but what can you do as a fan? All I could do was shrug my shoulders and say, "alright then, meh".
It makes it difficult to care deeply when - again, as a fan - you start to not be able to reconcile the discrepancies and differences of where the money comes from to run a team. To the specific matter of Prince Fielder, I am definitely not saying that if all things were equal (i.e. the $$), then he would have signed here, and therefore I'm mad. Last I checked, he still had the ability to decide where to play as a free agent. But when the "rules" are set up to allow a team to say, in effect, well for the next several years, we're just going to spend whatever it takes to buy what we want, and sorry that you don't own as much as me...
I start to find it hard to root for anyone. It's *interesting*, sure. But I don't really want to hold a rooting interest in something that I *know* is going to cause me grief 9 years out of 10.