Thursday, November 2, 2023

The Smart and the Stupid: MLB Teams Payrolls Compared to VIctories

 

The Orioles spent $700,000 for each win during the 2023 regular season. The Mighty Mets spent more than six times as much: $4.6 million per win.

Smart vs. Stupid: This is my sixth year measuring MLB team efficiencies: Payroll divided by victories. I use Spotrac for payroll, because it includes all paid players, even those no longer on the active roster.

This year’s post-season was a bit weird: The big-win teams in the regular season – Braves, Dodgers, Orioles, Rays – collapsed in the playoffs, taken over by wild-card teams on hot streaks. 

The big-spending Rangers -- $251 million payroll – paid $2.8 million per regular season victory.

The frugal D-backs spent $119 million, just a bit more than the Marlins’ $105 M. The Snakes and Fish each had 84 wins in the regular season, Miami spending $1.25 M per win, Arizona $1.4 M (half as much as the Rangers). During the playoffs, Arizona got hot. The Fish did not.

Looking back over the six years, what impresses me is that some teams are consistently smart on how they spend their money – and some teams are astoundingly stupid year after year.

 The Rays regularly reach the playoffs despite low budgets caused by dreadful attendance. For the past four years, the Orioles have had good efficiency – low cost per win – and finally made the playoffs this year.

Then there are the Pirates and A’s: Great bargains in cost-per-win, but not a whiff of playoffs. Each spent roughly $1 million per win.

Contrast that with teams like the Angels and Mets, who consistently spend huge amounts for naught. This year, the five teams that spent the most per win didn’t make the playoffs: Rockies ($2.9 million per win), Padres ($3.1 M), Angels ($3.15 M), Yankees ($3,4 M) and the Mets at an astonishing $4.6 million per win.

The Mets set an all-time record for payroll at $343 million, almost five times the Orioles’ $71 million.

The Yanks at least made the playoffs five of the six years, though the top spot they always seek keeps eluding them. The Padres got there twice in the same period.  The Mets once. The Angels, determinedly bad in cost-per-wins year after year, have not been in the playoffs since 2014, perhaps an example of the old saying that insanity is doing the same thing again and again expecting different results.

The World Champ Rangers are an interesting case. They had the fourth highest payroll – behind only the Mets, Yankees and Padres. Yet $96M of their $251M was injured reserve, led by deGrom at $30 million. Seager ($35.5 million) was a major factor for their success, but so were Evan Carter (adjusted salary $89,033 because he had less than 100 AB when he came up at the end of the season), Josh Jung ($721,000), Leodys Taveras $733,000, Josh Sborz $733,000 and Adolis Garcia $747,000. Then, even with super-stud Garcia injured, Bochy somehow made it all work.

 

TEAM

PAYR0LL

WINS

$ PER WIN

2023

Baltimore Orioles

$71,061,047

101

$703,574.72

1

Tampa Bay Rays

$79,354,272

99

$801,558.30

2

Pittsburgh Pirates

$68,945,975

76

$907,183.88

3

Cincinnati Reds

$96,577,288

82

$1,177,771.80

4

Cleveland Guardians

$91,861,627

76

$1,208,705.62

5

Oakland Athletics

$62,243,227

50

$1,244,864.54

6

Miami Marlins

$105,435,809

84

$1,255,188.20

7

Washington Nationals

$93,378,663

71

$1,315,192.44

8

Milwaukee Brewers

$125,338,345

92

$1,362,373.32

9

Arizona Diamondbacks

$119,257,651

84

$1,419,733.94

10

Seattle Mariners

$134,466,903

88

$1,528,032.99

11

Detroit Tigers

$121,494,514

78

$1,557,621.97

12

Kansas City Royals

$96,083,853

56

$1,715,783.09

13

Twins

$156,104,540

87

$1,794,305.06

14

Braves

$206,239,131

104

$1,983,068.57

15

St. Louis Cardinals

$153,793,028

71

$2,166,098.99

16

Cubs

$189,629,358

83

$2,284,691.06

17

Red Sox

$182,926,796

78

$2,345,215.33

18

Giants

$187,398,165

79

$2,372,128.67

19

Dodgers

$240,278,296

100

$2,402,782.96

20

Bluejays

$214,630,885

89

$2,411,582.98

21

Astros

$237,107,748

90

$2,634,530.53

22

White Sox

$162,863,836

61

$2,669,898.95

23

Phillies

$245,419,295

90

$2,726,881.06

24

Rangers

$251,332,754

90

$2,792,586.16

25

Rockies

$171,026,607

59

$2,898,756.05

26

Padres

$256,045,688

82

$3,122,508.39

27

Angels

$230,534,276

73

$3,158,003.78

28

Yankees

$278,651,000

82

$3,398,182.93

29

Mets

$343,605,067

75

$4,581,400.89

30

Saturday, November 19, 2022

Payroll for Championship Years

 Re-watching Game 7 of the 1997 World Series, I started wondering: How did the payrolls of the Marlins championship years stack up against the rest of the league?

The 2003 answer is especially surprising.

In 1997, the Marlins looked pretty much like an average playoff team with the seventh largest payroll, at $47 million (upped drastically from $30 million the previous year). Their World Series opponent, the Cleveland Indians, were a bit higher at $54 million, making them the fourth largest payroll. The Marlins’ biggest salary that year went to pitcher Alex Fernandez, who was injured during the playoffs.  

 In 2003, the upstart Marlins had MLB’s 25th largest payroll, at $49 million, close to the bottom of the pack. No one paid them much attention when Jack took over as manager. Their World Series opponent, the Damn Yankees, lead the majors with a whopping $152 million. (The Bronx Busters also led in payroll in 1997.)  The Fish’s highest paid player in 2003 was Pudge Rodriguez.

 These stats come from thebaseballcube.com.

Monday, November 7, 2022

Adding Playoff Victories to Costs-Per-Win

How much should you value a team’s post-season victories? Two, three possible answers.

For the past five years, I’ve been dividing a team’s payroll (using Spotrac) by regular-season victories, to get cost per win. But obviously, fans and owners value teams higher if they advance far into the playoffs.

So I noodled around with some alternative measures. If you add in playoff wins, it shows that teams that lose in the first rounds don’t alter their cost per victory very much.

Example: The Braves and Dodgers each one game in the post-season. That moved the Braves’ cost per win from $1.98 million to $1.96 million per win. The Dodgers went from $2.48 million to $2.46 million.

Guardians, who won two against Rays and two against Yankees, added four victories to their total, changing their cost per win just a bit more – from $892,000 to $855,000 per win.

For the Phils and Astros, making it all the way to World Series meant their numbers changed a bit more.

The Phillies, which had the fourth highest MLB payroll ($255 million), added 11 wins in the playoffs, reducing their cost per win from an MLB-leading $2.9 million to $2.6 million, meaning that the Angels, Padres, Yankees, Mets and Red Sox spent more per win, including playoffs.

As for the Astros, they had a (comparatively) modest payroll at $193 million. Eight teams spent more, including the Red Sox, who didn’t come anywhere near the playoffs. For regular-season wins, the Astros spent a relatively modest $1.8 million. Nineteen teams spent more per win.

Now, if you factor in the Astros’ 11 post-season victories, their cost per win was a mere $1.6 million – only nine teams had cheaper win costs.

I can imagine some fans saying that not all victories are equal. Second-round victories are harder to get – and should be worth more. And World Series wins should be worth a LOT more.

So if you count each first round (wild card) playoff win as one, each second round win as two, each third round (playing for league title) as three and each WS win as four, then Phillies’ and Astros’ costs per win drops significantly – the Phillies to $2 million per win-count, the Astros to $1.27 million per win-count.

Of course, you could take this farther. That fourth win in the World Series is super-special. Should that count as 20 regular-season wins? 50? Well, by this point, the original measures get completely lost.

When I post my analyses on Reddit groups for the Rays and Guardians, their fans are NOT impressed that their owners have been so smart in spending money. No, they just want owners to spend more so they can bring home a title. Truth is, this just isn’t realistic for small-market teams. The Rays especially have lousy attendance.

What my measures show how smart – or stupid -- owners are in spending what they’ve got. It’s especially revealing about teams like Red Sox and Angels, who spend tons of money year after year – and for what?

And then there’s my hometown team, the Marlins, a low-budget team that is out-performed year-after-year by the low-budget Rays.


Wednesday, November 2, 2022

Payroll Vs. Wins: Cleveland Is Champ

 Two big stories this year in measuring MLB payroll versus victories:

The low-budget Cleveland Baseball Team, aka the Guardians, had a stellar year, winning their division and getting to the second round of the playoffs for an ultra-cheap $892,000 cost per win during the regular season.

 Still, after the Guardians were gone, the post-season has been dominated by some of the biggest payrolls: The Phillies may be a wild card team, but they had the fourth biggest payroll in baseball, at $255 million, outspent only by the Mets, Dodgers and Damn Yankees.

The Phillies spent an astonishing, MLB-leading $2.92 million per regular-season victory. The Yankees weren’t far behind, shelling out $2.67 million per victory, just ahead of the Padres at $2.65 million.

In fact, of the four finalists for the pennants, the lowest-budget team was the Astros, the only one with a payroll of under $200 million. They spent $1.82 million per victory.

This is the fifth year that I have measured payrolls/victories, using the Spotrac website for payroll, which includes players being paid but not playing.

This year’s leader was the Baltimore Orioles, with a rock-bottom payroll of $64.8 million and 83 victories for a cost of $780,000 per victory.  They were in contention for much of the year, despite being in the same division as the Yankees, Rays and Bluejays – all of which made the playoffs.

Contrast the Orioles with the Red Sox, also in the AL East. They had almost four times the payroll -- $223.2 million. They finished with 78 victories for a cost of $2.86 million per win.

                                  High-Performing Rays

For the four previous years I’ve measured, the Rays have generally dominated my stats. They have spent a paltry $657,000 to $760,000 per victory – while getting to the playoffs all but once. Ironically, Tampa Bay upped its payroll a bit this year, to $104 million. They spent $1.2 million per victory this year – huge by Rays’ standards – but lost to the lower-budget Guardians in the first round of the playoffs.

At the opposite end of the spectrum are teams that have stunning payrolls – and don’t get anywhere near the playoffs. The Red Sox and Angels are perennial leaders in that category. This year the Angels spent $2.64 million per victory. Other disasters were the Nats and White Sox, each spending $2.57 million per win without a playoff bid.

Then there were the Mets, with the highest payroll at $283 million. They got a whiff of playoff time for $2.8 million per win. The Dodgers had the second-highest payroll $275.6 million, but their MLB-leading 111 wins meant they spent “only” $2.48 million per win. Still, they got knocked out early by the Padres.

And those Damn Yankees. For years, they have been near the top of big spenders, both in terms of payroll and cost per win. Still, they haven’t won a World Series since 2009. This year, they had the third biggest payroll -- $264 million – and once again fell short.  

As for the Marlins, they upped their payroll by signing two high-priced (by Fish standards) outfielders, Avisail Garcia and Jorge Soler at $12 million each – and got little from them, even before they were injured. The Marlins’ $1.39 million per win was just about the same as the playoff-bound Mariners at $1.43.

Below are the stats for the regular season. After the World Series, I’m thinking of doing another computation, including post-season wins. Should those wins be valued more? I’m debating.

                                                                             PAYROLL     COST

                                                       WINS            MILLIONS    PER VICTORY 

                                                                                                      MILLIONS                                                                                                     

Baltimore

83

64.8

  0.7807229

1

Cleveland

92

82.1

0.8923913

2

Oakland As

60

61

1.0166667

3

TB Rays

86

104.3

1.2127907

4

Pittsburgh Pirates

62

85.1

1.3725806

5

Marlins

69

96.3

1.3956522

6

Seattle Mariners

90

128.7

1.43

7

Ariz Diamondbacks

74

106.3

1.4364865

8

KC Royals

65

105.3

1.62

9

Milwaukee Brewers

86

142.7

1.6593023

10

Houston Astros

106

192.9

1.8198113

11

St. Louis Cards

93

170.1

1.8290323

12

Atlanta Braves

101

200.1

1.9811881

13

Minn

78

159

2.0384615

14

Toronto Blue Jays

92

188.9

2.0532609

15

Cincy Reds

62

127.4

2.0548387

16

SF Giants

81

168.2

2.0765432

17

Chi Cubs

74

166.1

2.2445946

18

Detroit Tigers

66

150

2.2727273

19

Colorado Rockies

68

158.9

2.3367647

20

Texas Rangers

68

161.3

2.3720588

21

LA Dodgers

111

275.6

2.4828829

22

Chi White Sox

81

208.3

2.5716049

23

Washington Nats

55

141.5

2.5727273

24

LA Angels

73

192.9

2.6424658

25

San Diego Padres

89

236.7

2.6595506

26

NY Yankees

99

264.9

2.6757576

27

NY Mets

101

282.7

2.7990099

28

Boston Red Sox

78

223.2

2.8615385

29

Phila Phillies

87

255.1

2.9321839

30