If you mess up on a $5 million signing like Smoltz and Penny, it doesn't devastate a team's finances. They are low cost moves with a low probability of success. If you hit on one of those occasionally it's great, but the probability of hitting on one of those is low. When you pay the money for a big ticket luxury car, you don't expect it to perform like a yugo. The big ticket guy may not completely justify his salary, but he shouldn't perform at Darnell McDonald levels. Theo purchased too many yugos for Masserati money. The last straw was Lackey, who was the worst starting pitcher in Sox history. Historically, our GM's have only had to pay the minimum salary to get a pitcher who was not nearly as bad as Lackey.