If you are building a team that you want to see strong for 5-8 years then it makes sense to me to invest as many resources as you can in star hitters. The reason being that from year to year the top echelon hitters are more reliable than the top echelon pitchers.

As I sit here I believe I can count exactly FOUR exceptions to this rule. Pedro Martinez, Randy Johnson, Greg Maddux, and Kevin Brown. There are about three-four others that are pretty good MOST of the time but not all of the time.

The point I am trying to make is that you cannot build a team for the LONG HAUL on the Mike Sirotka's and Brad Radke's and Kris Benson's of the world because they will not carry you each and every year. With the deviation in pitching it almost works to use pitcher du-jour.

If you are building for just one year.... different story... stock up on all the pitching you can get for that year. But there is a price to be paid.

Personally my orgainizational philosophy is to try and set myself up to win as much as I can in the long run so I drift towards star hitters as my nucleus to maintain long term stability. Someone else may have a different plan.

Due to free agency MLB teams do not have the luxury of thinking about what will happen 5 years out because they may not get that great player for his next contract. But I do have the luxury of thinking about that because I can have the player till he drops.