That's one of the problems with the $20M assertion.
If you re-cast the question to ask, "How many teams have a huge % of their payroll in two players" you'll get a much different return.
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Another problem is: supposing that teams did not have two mega-salaries ... would that be by choice or by circumstance?
Perhaps everybody would choose to have their own Cabrera and Verlander, if possible, but the players are not realistically available to them?
There are only a few 5-WAR free agents each year, many fewer than one per team.
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There are only three teams with the resources to top-load their rosters in the free agent market, and that is what those teams in fact do.
Reductio ad absurdum: If I could get 30 WAR in just two or three players -- Ruth, Walter Johnson -- then I would. That would free 22-23 roster slots to exploit the arb and pre-arb salary scales.
The Yankees, Phillies and Red Sox make a pretty good facsimile towards this kind of approach.
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