Paying the Piper

Dave Paisley

Now that Jack McKeon has been selected NL Manager of the year and Oakland's Art Howe should make a decent showing in the AL, it's evident that many middle-of-the-pack baseball clubs will be looking at cost-effective ways of being competitive. As the 1999 payroll figures leaked out on Tuesday, there couldn't be a more opportune time to review team performance versus cost.

People look at the Yankees and say they bought themselves three World Series in the last four campaigns. It's true they've always been in the top ranks of payroll, but it's the devastatingly efficient use of the money that has earned them their success. It's possible to spend a lot of money and wind up with a lousy team. Cases in point this year are Baltimore (for the second year straight) and Los Angeles (although nobody can blame Kevin Brown for the fact the rest of the team tanked.)

If you've seen the numbers already, no doubt the only way you've seen them ranked is by salary. Well, that's just not the Strikethree.com way. And it's especially not my way. Here's a slightly different view of the numbers.

In the following table, the Actual Payroll is the number without contract termination costs, that is, just the amount paid out in salary for this year, not including the money paid to not have players play next year. Wins - 60 is simply, well, the number of wins minus 60. My logic here is that any team can win 60 games, and that wins above that level that are determined by player quality. If I'd just run a straight $ Per Win number, then Montreal comes out close to the top, as do most of the really low payroll teams. What I'm really trying to find are the teams that efficiently bought themselves wins that pushed their team close to the playoffs. So, without further ado, here it is:

Team	Actual Payroll	Wins	Wins -60	$ Per Win Above 60
Oakland	$24,150,333	87	27	$894,457
Cincinnati	$42,142,761	96	36	$1,170,632
Pittsburgh	$24,167,666	78	18	$1,342,648
HOUSTON	$55,439,000	97	37	$1,498,351
White Sox	$24,535,000	75	15	$1,635,667
ATLANTA	$74,965,000	103	43	$1,743,372
ARIZONA	$69,945,999	100	40	$1,748,650
San Francisco	$45,934,557	86	26	$1,766,714
Philadelphia	$30,441,500	77	17	$1,790,676
METS	$71,281,425	97	37	$1,926,525
CLEVELAND	$73,417,962	97	37	$1,984,269
Toronto	$48,065,333	84	24	$2,002,722
Montreal	$16,338,000	68	8	$2,042,250
BOSTON	$71,470,000	94	34	$2,102,059
TEXAS	$80,801,598	95	35	$2,308,617
YANKEES	$88,130,709	98	38	$2,319,229
Seattle	$44,246,336	79	19	$2,328,755
Milwaukee	$42,927,395	74	14	$3,066,243
St. Louis	$46,173,195	75	15	$3,078,213
San Diego	$45,832,179	74	14	$3,273,727
Florida	$15,150,000	64	4	$3,787,500
Detroit	$34,934,666	69	9	$3,881,630
Baltimore	$70,593,363	78	18	$3,921,854
Kansas City	$16,557,000	64	4	$4,139,250
Los Angeles	$71,115,786	77	17	$4,183,282
Tampa Bay	$37,737,500	69	9	$4,193,056
Colorado	$54,367,504	72	12	$4,530,625
Anaheim	$49,868,166	70	10	$4,986,817
Minnesota	$16,345,000	63	3	$5,448,333
Cubs	$55,368,500	67	7	$7,909,786

No surprise, then, that Cincinnati and Oakland lead the table. This seems intuitively right -- they both made the most of limited resources. It's further evidence that McKeon and Howe (with help from Bowden and Beane) deserve Manager of the Year awards. Note that this method also puts the playoff teams (in all caps) into the top half of the table. In fact, the NL playoff clubs were all more efficient than their AL counterparts, all finishing in the top 10. What this tells me is that if money is spent wisely it can buy happiness, at least for playoff-bound fans.

Kudos to the Pirates and White Sox, who both make very strong showings by this method. Note also that Montreal still makes it into the upper half of the table by virtue of that ultra-low payroll and the 8 "extra" wins.

At the other end of the scale, we have the Cubs, Angels and Rockies, all of whom coughed up $50M or more for practically nothing. It's no shock to see bad teams down there (hello, LA!), even at very low salaries (woo-hoo, Twins!)

Another thought I had was to take a look at just the playoff teams. Let's face it, the goal of the regular season is not to win 90 games, it's to get into the playoffs. The deeper, the better. So we could say one goal is to get as many playoff games as possible. Beyond that, the goal is to win as many playoff games as possible. Of course, in general, the more you win, the more you play, up to a point. With that in mind, here's another table that attempts to measure playoff efficiency:

Team	Actual Payroll	Playoff Games	$ Per Playoff Game	Playoff Wins	$ Per Playoff Win
Atlanta	$74,965,000	14	$5,354,643	7	$10,709,285.71
Mets	$71,281,425	10	$7,128,143	5	$14,256,285.00
Boston	$71,470,000	10	$7,147,000	4	$17,867,500.00
Yankees	$88,130,709	12	$7,344,226	11	$8,011,882.64
Houston	$55,439,000	4	$13,859,750	1	$55,439,000.00
Cleveland	$73,417,962	5	$14,683,592	2	$36,708,981.00
Arizona	$69,945,999	4	$17,486,500	1	$69,945,999.00
Texas	$80,801,598	3	$26,933,866	0	infinity

Purely in terms of number of games played, The Braves come out well ahead, based on having played the most games. The Mets, Red Sox and Yankees all got their money's worth, spending around $7M per playoff game. After that, the first-round losers all ended up paying a lot more per game, making you wonder if all that effort was worthwhile.

When we look instead at $ per playoff win, the Yankees shoot right to the top, of course, at $8M per. Maybe there is something to that "you've got to spend money to make money" adage. Pity the poor Rangers, who don't have so much as a playoff win to be able to calculate an actual number. In their case it really makes you wonder why they bother. Of course, that goes in spades for the likes of the Twins and Marlins.

Let me leave you with this final thought -- you can expect that your team next year will win as many games above 60 as the payroll in millions divided by 2. Payroll of $50M? Win 25 extra games, or 85 total, give or take a few.

about the author

Dave Paisley has also determined that the Yankees led MLB in champagne-to-series ratio for 1999. Suggest that the Mets did their best at drdjp@strikethree.com.