Just spending isn't good enough. Who would you sign? How much would you be willing to spend? No team can afford to spend money for the sake of spending. The contest is about efficient and effective use of limited resources. I know the saying goes "You have to spend money to make money," but it's not completely accurate. You have to spend money wisely to make money. Even the Yankees can't afford to throw away too much money without hurting their ability to compete. Would you sign Max Sherzer? Would you sign him for 7 years/$200M, or whatever crazy figure it will take? Would you trade Buxton for whoever the Shields equivalent on the market is today? The Royals have some things they did that are worth imitating - especially paying attention to OF defense - but sneaking into the wild card and getting hot in October isn't a repeatable strategy. Maybe they knew something about will Myers (and Wade Davis) that nobody else could see, or maybe they got lucky. They did have a number of former top prospects who they believed were on the cusp of putting it all together, so they went for it. Are the Twins there right now? i'm going to leave that as an open-ended "maybe" right now, because I have to go. Just know that if the Twins go for it now and fail, it will be disastrous. KC almost did that, and they still have to pay the piper this off-season, although with the post-season run they made, they might be able to afford it.