A good and knowledgeable post as usual but this bit caught my eye. I think BMC did well investing in Cadel Evans? I'd be surprised if BMC didn't recoup Evans fee on the back of his results. 2010 Giro, 2010 La Flèche Wallonne, 2011 TdF and a string of other wins and top results which must have pleased the sponsors. I don't think you can compare Froome and ISN with BMC.
It's not so much to compare ISN with BMC but to demonstrate using BMC as the example that buying high isn't the best route to sustainable success. I mean, yes, Evans will have recouped that off the back of his results, but when they signed him he was 32 years old and the reigning World Champion - so it was hardly investing in the future. Evans was a bit of an unusual case in that he'd actually wasted most of his peak years riding too defensively at a team who had been unable to support him to the requisite level, so he was actually able to outperform his previous results in his Indian summer, but even so, his GC showings had actually been moving backward and I honestly thought in 2008 he'd wasted his chance to be a Tour winner, but in 2011 he was handed an unexpected final opportunity and his mindset was far more proactive that time. As a result I would contend that Evans at Lotto was actually physically superior to his BMC self but tactically too cautious, whereas the BMC Evans was much more able and willing to maximise his abilities and extract results from his form.
Look at the big money acquisitions made by BMC when they first made the step forward in the team, and the stage of their career they were at to see what I'm getting at, though.
Philippe Gilbert - 29
Alessandro Ballan - 30
Cadel Evans - 32
Thor Hushovd - 33
George Hincapie - 36
They also brought Samuel Sánchez in just before his 36th birthday but by then they were an established WT team and had also started to bring through younger riders of their own or acquired at a young age through other teams' collapses, such as Phinney and van Garderen. Greg van Avermaet, at 26, was the exception to the signing rule, and they got a lot more out of him. All of the guys listed above were bought when their value was at its highest and their contract would be at its most expensive, save for Hincapie who was obviously on the wind-down. Evans, Gilbert and Hushovd were all brought in as rainbow jerseys. This obviously ties more of the budget into the riders than signing coming riders on multi-year contracts younger and potentially getting part of that contract at a bargain price if they hit their peak, which Sky have been much better at managing.
Looking at Sky's rosters over the years, who have they signed in a comparable manner at a comparable stage of their career? Wiggins was 29 when he signed but that was when the team first started (same goes for Rogers who was 30). Pretty much every other big signing has been of riders who are more akin to van Avermaet than the others above - Poels and König signing at 27 are just about the oldest. The riders who are 29+ who they bring in are by and large specifically domestiques brought in for experience, and the riders brought in as leaders and superdomestiques are brought in on their "coming into peak" contract rather than their "peak value" contract.
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