Wins per Payroll Dollar, 2009

by GiantPain on Oct 9, 2009 8:30 PM PDT Comment 25 comments

In which I, bored on an evening I didn't feel like going out on and annoyed by facebook friends celebrating a Yankee win, I decide to do extremely rough payroll-to-wins calculations for the league. I will be using, for the sake of simplicity, opening day payrolls.

Payroll from here

Here's the league, as sorted by dollars spent per win:

Florida Marlins	$423,149.43
San Diego Padres	$570,622.67
Minnesota Twins	$750,566.29
Tampa Bay Rays	$753,726.61
Pirates	$786,177.42
Texas Rangers	$789,034.75
Colorado Rockies	$817,402.17
Oakland Athletics	$830,800.00
Cincinnati Reds	$909,852.56
San Francisco Giants	$933,652.84
St. Louis Cardinals	$972,839.68
Milwaukee Brewers	$998,218.78
Nationals	$1,005,559.32
Baltimore Orioles	$1,048,463.55
Arizona Diamondbacks	$1,051,023.81
Los Angeles Dodgers	$1,057,453.69
Toronto Blue Jays	$1,079,915.43
Kansas City Royals	$1,090,897.43
Atlanta Braves	$1,124,722.87
Seattle Mariners	$1,163,578.44
Los Angeles Angels	$1,172,257.73
Philadelphia Phillies	$1,215,097.29
Chicago White Sox	$1,216,056.96
Cleveland Indians	$1,255,777.95
Boston Red Sox	$1,291,536.84
Detroit Tigers	$1,338,199.36
Houston Astros	$1,391,843.45
Chicago Cubs	$1,627,108.43
New York Mets	$1,939,628.40
New York Yankees	$1,955,818.34

All in all, it's mostly what you'd expect, teams that succeed and pay a lot have a worse ratio. I know these numbers are mostly useless, but they're a little interesting. The Marlins, for example, topping the charts, were not a terrible team. The Rockies and the Twins both made the playoffs while in the top 10. The Giants are #10 on the list.

Which, inevitably, begs the question: should baseball have a salary cap?

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Comments

LOL METS

Matt Cain: He'll save children, but not the Dodger children.
"AT LAST I AM A PARENTS." - Buster

by jponry on Oct 9, 2009 8:37 PM PDT reply actions 0 recs

LOL CUBS

Proud father of Dallas Mcpherson....anyone know a good Chiropractor?

by The Thrill on Oct 9, 2009 8:42 PM PDT reply actions 0 recs

Whoops

Just realized the Yankees aren’t on here for some reason. They’re supposed to be last. Let me change that.

Why do San Francisco teams insist on having terrible offenses? Frank Gore and Pablo Sandoval can't do it all.

by GiantPain on Oct 9, 2009 8:46 PM PDT reply actions 0 recs

all changed

Why do San Francisco teams insist on having terrible offenses? Frank Gore and Pablo Sandoval can't do it all.

by GiantPain on Oct 9, 2009 8:48 PM PDT up reply actions 0 recs

baseball doesn't need a salary cap

how many world series have those top 3 teams won in the last 5 years?

by Tim LinCyYoung on Oct 9, 2009 9:08 PM PDT reply actions 0 recs

It doesn't show up in WS so much

But you can definitely see the effects in playoff appearances.

Why do San Francisco teams insist on having terrible offenses? Frank Gore and Pablo Sandoval can't do it all.

by GiantPain on Oct 9, 2009 9:25 PM PDT up reply actions 0 recs

then let them pay all the money they want to get into the playoffs. it’s not like they’re winning much when they need to.

by Tim LinCyYoung on Oct 9, 2009 9:37 PM PDT up reply actions 0 recs

It’s kind of hard to win the WS if you don’t make the playoffs, and it’s kind of hard to make the playoffs if your payroll is $40M. Conversely, if your payroll is $200M, you have a very good chance of winning 26 WS titles because you go to the playoffs so much (it’s not all about the last five years; if we were talking about this in 2001, with the Yankees having made the WS for four straight years and won it three times in the last five, you’d be singing a different tune).

People keep talking about how small-market, small-budget successes like the Marlins and Rays are a sign of how baseball doesn’t need a salary cap, completely ignoring the fact that it took the Rays ten years of terrible baseball and high draft picks along with a good deal of luck and a great scouting system to win the AL East once (so far). The Marlins have decent success because they trade their players for prospects once they start getting expensive, but they’ve also been very lucky with their farm system, and they would probably be in a much worse position this year and others if they didn’t have the Nats to beat up on (and the Mets this year). Without a salary cap, small market teams must compete two or three years per decade (that small window when their prospects develop in major-league caliber players and before they get expensive), and spending the rest of the time wallowing in last place hoping beyond hope their star prospects don’t hurt themselves, or flame out in other ways.

by quincy0191 on Oct 9, 2009 9:52 PM PDT up reply actions 0 recs

All it takes is judgement.

[T]hey trade their players for prospects once they start getting expensive . . . .

But, if you do that wisely, your team should be continually getting better. To oversimplify, assume you trade each of your good players, once each is established as a quality player, for two prospects at the edge of coming to the majors. If your “batting average” on selecting and acquiring prospects by trade is anything at all over .500, you can only get better over time—the more over .500 it is, the faster the improvement.

Of course, not every player can be tradeed for two prospects, so .500 may not suffice, but even without tiresome numerical tables of combinations, you get the idea. Just be able to judge other teams’ prospects well. They needn’t all be superstars—just players about as good as you’re trading away.

Professional baseball analyst since 1980.

by owlcroft on Oct 10, 2009 1:21 AM PDT up reply actions 0 recs

Huh?

Please explain your math. It seems to me that if you constantly trade away your good players, and in return get two players (only one of which is replacement level), then you are simply maintaining the status quo, not getting “better over time.”

If you traded said player for 3 players, and 2 of them turned out to be replacement level, then you would be getting better over time.

"The part of the roster where most of the money is spent, though, is on free agents and guys acquired through trade — guys Sabean did play a big role in acquiring. And they are not good. When you get 2/5 of a pitching rotation for free, you would think you could do better with $76 million than to field the league’s worst offense."
-Taliesin September, 2009

by Lyle on Oct 10, 2009 8:25 AM PDT up reply actions 0 recs

basically

you would need a “success percentage of over .500?”

by sfoakbay on Oct 10, 2009 2:05 PM PDT up reply actions 0 recs

The problem is that the superstars are the ones you’re trading away. Good players can be kept, because they don’t require huge contracts. It’s the Hanley Ramirez, Josh Beckett, Evan Longoria, and Ben Zobrist types that you’re trading, because trying to sign them once they’ve had success is going to be very expensive. So you have to trade them when they’re a year or so away from FA, and hope to God that the package you get in return contains a younger, cheaper version of what you just gave up. That means you’re building a team based almost entirely on luck, and that’s no way to stay competitive.

by quincy0191 on Oct 10, 2009 1:39 PM PDT up reply actions 0 recs

lol

1/30

Nobody likes money

by fwoty oz on Oct 9, 2009 11:28 PM PDT up reply actions 0 recs

Maybe cheapass owners should stop pocketing the revenue sharing and put it into their teams

Or not really, it’s their money after all.

Aaron King is still my homeboy... iffy mechanics and all

McFAQ for all you newcomers out there.

GET THAT VORP AND WHIP SH!T OUTTA HERE!!!

by baetown415 on Oct 9, 2009 11:07 PM PDT reply actions 0 recs

When BP does this sort of analysis

they start with the assumption that a team would win X games with a league-minimum payroll (i.e. all AAA players and free agents no one else wants). I think X = around 35 or 40.

So, then the equation becomes : (salary – (25 * league min)) / (wins – X)

I imagine that BP has crunched and posted their numbers recently. I don’t read anymore, and don’t have an account, so I wouldn’t know.

by SnowLeopard on Oct 9, 2009 11:53 PM PDT reply actions 0 recs

Sorry:

Which, inevitably, begs the question . . . .

Um, no, sorry to be persnickety, but it doesn’t beg the question.

Professional baseball analyst since 1980.

by owlcroft on Oct 10, 2009 1:13 AM PDT reply actions 0 recs

yeah yeah

did you get your intellectual rocks off?

Why do San Francisco teams insist on having terrible offenses? Frank Gore and Pablo Sandoval can't do it all.

by GiantPain on Oct 10, 2009 7:12 AM PDT up reply actions 0 recs

No salary cap. Pay the players what they are worth to the team.

Merkin Valdez? Manuel Mateo? A rose by any other name...

by rotorueter on Oct 10, 2009 5:30 AM PDT reply actions 0 recs

Quincy’s point above is valid. If you are in the lower echelon, payroll-wise, it’s extremely hard overcome the talent imbalance that is likely to occur. The Florida Marlins are amazing, but should not be pointed to as an example of what everybody could do.

It seems that most teams spend a lot of money, but don’t get a lot for it, much like our favorite team. I’d prefer a system that rewards ONLY shrewd player evaluation without the noise of imbalanced payrolls. And yes, I realize that the recent Giants teams would still do poorly under such a system.

by Lyle on Oct 10, 2009 8:31 AM PDT reply actions 0 recs

I don’t understand. By artifically holding down player’s worth (via a salary cap) that will reward teams that are better at evaluating MLB players? It hasn’t done that in the NFL…it’s created a situation where very valuable players are cut each and every year so teams can stay under the cap while giving away valueable assests. Please ’splain, Rucy…

by tyrannoman on Oct 11, 2009 6:30 PM PDT up reply actions 0 recs

LOL Zeets

Responsible for about five ranking points in this list.

--
Long ago they came west over the mountains, and I have rooted for them years uncounted; and together through many ages of this world we have fought the long defeat.

by shanghaijim on Oct 10, 2009 11:02 AM PDT reply actions 0 recs