A couple more factors that may or may not have been covered (I've only read 2 of 5 pages of posts, but if I wait until I'm done I will forget what I was going to say) [Edit - 2 of 31 pages!] : 1. The market for starting pitching is a sellers' market because there is very little available among the free agents. 2. The "plays once every 5 days" thing is true, but the impact on the one day can be 5x as valuable as average impact of a position player. 3. When you add an ace, chances are he's replacing a replacement-level pitcher, since most teams have a AAA-AAAA shuffle at the 5th starter position. Most contending teams can come up with a league-average 2B on the cheap and make of the offense elsewhere if the price tog for Dozier goes too high.