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 25^th 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.

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.

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