[suzzer99]

For me as a fan, losing homegrown stars is a bigger deal than the competitiveness. Obviously in a perfect salary cap world, it's not like the Royals would be playoff contenders every year anyway.

But they did have a nice run from the mid 70s to mid 80s that probably wouldn't be possible today because they'd have lost Brett, Willie Wilson, probably McRae and Frank White, Dennis Leonard, Quiz.

When the Royals lost Damon and Beltran, my fandom cooled, as did a lot of fans. The Joe Sheehans of the world will point to Wander, Christian Yelich, or Joey Votto. Those are few and far between though, and very risky by the small market teams - and none are a top 5 player in baseball like Brett was for a decade.

The smart play for small market teams is usually to try to get a haul for the mega-star, which often may be a good deal for competitiveness. But it takes out a lot of the fun of being a fan when you know your team is essentially a minor league feeder, at least when when it comes to superstars.