Fangraphs has 1 WAR=$5.5m of value. Ventura is already up to 0.8 WAR and it's not even May. Let's assume he ends up at 2.0 WAR and an implied value of $11.0m. He's being paid league miniumum of $0.5m so his "surplus value" is well north of $10.0m. Guys like this are valuable even to the Yankees or Dodgers, but to small markets their value is amplified greatly.
If we look at other small market successes we see them generating massive surplus with young pitchers (Tampa, Oakland, even Florida). Teams like St Louis and Atlanta continually hit on young pitchers so even bigger spenders gain huge advantages with it.
We know that young pitchers are getting hurt repeatedly and research tends to show the younger the pitcher, the more prone they are to injury. Chris Sale just went on the DL with elbow soreness after his idiot manager let him go
127 pitches last week. If I were Kenny Williams, I'd have one helluva closed door tongue lashing for that. Prospectus has a "Pitcher Abuse Points" ranking and Sale is #2 on this list and #5 last year:
http://www.baseballprospectus.com/so...hp?cid=1657933