My understanding of the USSM post was somewhat different from how you seem to be presenting it. I took the point to be simply that if the Mariners only have about 25-30 million to spend, putting 25 million into Fielder isn't going to be an effective strategy if you want to compete next year. In other words, they are addressing the particular situation of the Mariners right now, not the more abstract and general issue of whether stars and scrubs is more efficient than lots'o'civics. As regards the latter issue, you do a nice job of explaining why Stars and Scrubs has legs. As regards the claim by USSM, though, it seems right to me. If we assume that the Mariners have 25 million dollars to spend, and need to get X wins for that 25 million dollars, then investing that 25 million dollars in any strategy that nets you less than X wins isn't going to cut it. "Buy Fielder" is a strategy that doesn't get you X wins and hence isn't a good strategy given the budgetary assumptions made. In some ways, this strikes me as a fairly uninteresting and somewhat trivial point.