Good questions. But I don't think the Rockies have been bad historically because they haven't spent lots of money on players outside their couple of stars, because other teams have been successful with that same basic "youth plus a couple big veterans" model lately (the Astros just won the WS with an opening day payroll lower than the Rockies, AZ beat COL in this year's WC game, and Cleveland has had two deep playoff runs the last two years). Outside the half-dozen cash-rich teams, everybody has to draft and develop young players and that's where the Rockies have failed historically, especially with pitchers.

The Rockies will never spend tons of money on free agent pitching, both because it's too risky for the team if they fail (Hampton/Neagle) and because few pitchers would choose to pitch here for any amount of money anyway. So they should always have a bit more money to give to position players like Nolan. But that makes their pitching development that much more critical.