Agreed. They've been running their internal value system out there since the Lester days. It has less to do with trying to save a buck and more to do with trying to look smart in front of other owners. Henry COULD outspend everyone else, but that just wouldn't be sporting of him. He still worries about revenue sharing to smaller clubs (unlike other bigger clubs) and wants to win the same way he made all his money back in the day. I've said it over and over again, but just rewatch the Henry scene in Moneyball. It's all you need to know. I would bet everything that he looks at the '25 Dodgers and Mets the same way he looked at the Yankees 20+ years ago.
John Henry: For forty-one million, you built a playoff team. You lost Damon, Giambi, Isringhausen, Pena and you won more games without them than you did with them. You won the exact same number of games that the Yankees won, but the Yankees spent one point four million per win and you paid two hundred and sixty thousand. I know you've taken it in the teeth out there, but the first guy through the wall. It always gets bloody, always. It's the threat of not just the way of doing business, but in their minds it's threatening the game. But really what it's threatening is their livelihoods, it's threatening their jobs, it's threatening the way that they do things. And every time that happens, whether it's the government or a way of doing business or whatever it is, the people are holding the reins, have their hands on the switch. They go bat s*** crazy. I mean, anybody who's not building a team right and rebuilding it using your model, they're dinosaurs. They'll be sitting on their ass on the sofa in October, watching the Boston Red Sox win the World Series.