I don't see how it depends on that at all. They chose to reduce payroll despite the fact that they could afford it. That's all there is to it. I'm just saying that if something else is reasonably deemed a higher priority, then it's not that cut and dried. I mean, there are a lot of things they spend money on that they could dump out and ship to MLB payroll. What does "afford to provide" mean? Well, given that MLB has taken away the ability to outspend other teams in the draft and internationally, I have to imagine the list of alternate financial pipelines isn't all that long.