And that is great, all things being equal. If there are 2 teams with the same payroll, you would prefer to be the one who is getting more value out of their assets. But in reality, things are never that simple. Teams that spend more don't need to get as much value per dollar out of their players and can afford to take risks in their spending. To me, that is one of the big problems with the Cubs' approach. They are so afraid of potentially bad contracts that they also are extremely unlikely to ever sign players to historically good contracts (think players like Ohtani, Bryce Harper). If you are always fishing in the 2nd tier waters, you may often come out ahead, and the Cubs have been really good about maximizing value on those types of players, but they are going to need to continue hitting on those deals year after year.