Quote:
Originally Posted by Gozer
Interesting thought experiment. Let's look at the reigning champions in the four major sports (off the top of my head, not much research done on this post):
Packers: Prototypical farm team, but they did spend big on Woodson who spent a few seasons with the prospects before being a championship-calibre team.
Bruins: Chara seems like another great example of what you're looking for.
Cardinals: Had a few big-ticket acquisitions after their last championship, I'd think that when they brought in Holliday and Berkman they were average and over-spending. They did have the best player in the game though.
Mavericks: Kidd and Marion, but this is more of a team trying to get better before their window closed than prospects boosting them with solidified free agent signings.
Doesn't seem that rare to me though.
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It's hard to compare it to other pro sports though.
In basketball and hockey with more than half the league making the playoffs the benefit of each marginal win "purchased" by signing a guy like Fielder is much greater to most teams. In the MLB, signing Fielder's 5 WAR is much more valuable to a 90+ win team than an 80- win team (which is like a 30/70 split). In the NBA and NHL the split is more like 75/25 as there's lot of teams that adding one superstar piece could put them in the playoffs. The Bruins can buy a Chara, become a bubble playoff team pretty easily and almost always get some benefit out of it on a yearly basis.
The NFL is a bad comparison as free agency just isn't a big deal. Careers are too short so most teams are built almost entirely from the draft.