Sure, but coming off a down year, it's going to be bad again next year anyway. They need to rebuild anyway and smaller market teams have a tough time affording expensive starting pitching. The winning and losing matters a lot more than name players. Unfortunately, we'll probably never know how much losing a player of his caliber on a small market team affects attendance. You are correct that they will be down coming off a bad year. I'm sure their season ticket sales this season wasn't impacted all that much since they were coming off a good season the previous year and essentially had everyone from that team coming back again. Season ticket sales will plummet this coming season now that fans know it was a bad team this year and will likely be worse next year. These people love Peavy, however. Pittsburgh loved Jason Bay (and before that Giles). I just don't think there are untouchable players. Very, very few teams really hold on to the fan favorites forever, and most smaller clubs get rid of them earlier than expected.