some teams accept that the last 2-3 years are the price you pay for the first few years, and are probably not counting on value in those last few years. You can decide to be fine with that or not. $/WAR is a great measure, if you are willing to live with low WAR, you can have a low budget, but then, you'll lose more, right? If it costs $6MM for 1 WAR, and you only spend $12MM, you get 2 wins.....or, if you pay more, you get more wins. If you pay for bad pitchers, you will generally get bad pitchers. Me? I'd rather pay for good to great pitchers, and not waste money on 1-2 WAR pitchers.