Untouchables: What's the cost of keeping them?

I'm not quite ready to dump what I've learned about the Cardinals and their ability to win pennants despite their small market status. But having just looked at the Cubs, it strikes me that Untouchables, as much as fans love them, can hold a good team back. The Cards won a couple of pennants with a very young Musial in the lineup in the 1940s. Then the team struggled until Stan the Man retired in 1963. Ted Williams played in just one World Series--the 1946 Series, which was Musial's last. The Cubs never won with Banks, Santo and Williams on the Untouchables list. The Tigers went to the WS just once (1968) during Kaline's career (they did win their division in '72 just before Kaline retired).

Mantle and Ford were in that category, but with a difference: Casey Stengel constantly berated Mantle, something people tend to forget today, which kept Mickey hungry for Casey's approval. He never achieved "star status" till after Casey was gone and he had become an aging and hobbled legend. And Whitey never had the star quality about him. Surrounded by so much talent, it was only later in his career that people began to notice how awesome he truly was.