Batter's Box Interactive Magazine - There Is Nothing quite as Wonderful as Money

There Is Nothing quite as Wonderful as Money

You can keep your Marxist ways, for it's only just a phase...
Money, money, money makes the world go round!

USA Today has published salary data for all 30 major league teams. Read 'em and weep.

Team           Roster size      Payroll (in millions)   Average salary (in millions)

 1. Yankees         42                 $213.5                      $5.09
 2. Dodgers         46                 $148.9                      $3.24
 3. Cubs            38                 $139.2                      $3.66
 4. Tigers          41                 $137.1                      $3.34
 5. Red Sox         41                 $133.07                     $3.24

 6. Mets            44                 $131.5                      $2.99
 7. Phillies        41                 $125.5                      $3.06
 8. Cardinals       38                 $124.7                      $3.28 
 9. Angels          42                 $121.1                      $2.9
10. Mariners        44                 $111.1                      $2.53

11. Braves          41                 $106.6                      $2.6
12. Astros          40                 $105.8                      $2.65
13. White Sox       38                 $ 97.0                      $2.55
14. Rockies         44                 $ 96.4                      $2.19
15. Giants          44                 $ 95.3                      $2.17

16. Brewers         41                 $ 88.5                      $2.16
17. Twins           42                 $ 82.0                      $1.95
18. Royals          39                 $ 79.9                      $2.05
19. Reds            43                 $ 79.07                     $1.84
20. Rays            42                 $ 67.8                      $1.61

21. D'backs         42                 $ 67.6                      $1.61
22. Rangers         43                 $ 64.1                      $1.5
23. Indians         37                 $ 59.3                      $1.60
24. Blue Jays       40                 $ 59.4                      $1.5
25. Nationals       43                 $ 58.3                      $1.36

26. Orioles         41                 $ 55.2                      $1.35
27. Marlins         42                 $ 47.4                      $1.13
28. Athletics       43                 $ 46.4                      $1.08
29. Padres          45                 $ 36.7                      $0.815
30. Pirates         43                 $ 29.9                      $0.695

Any correlation between money and on-field results are in the eye of the beholder.

Posted by Magpie on Saturday, September 05 2009 @ 08:17 PM EDT.

There Is Nothing quite as Wonderful as Money | 19 comments | Create New Account

The following comments are owned by whomever posted them. This site is not responsible for what they say.

TamRa - Saturday, September 05 2009 @ 10:07 PM EDT (#205860) #

that's just silly. they apparently deducted ALL of Rolen and Rios' salary from the Jays payroll. That's far too sloppy for professional journalism.

ayjackson - Saturday, September 05 2009 @ 11:06 PM EDT (#205862) #

It's a measurement at Sept 1 of all players on the 40-man. It's not sloppy. They don't pretend it's something it's not. And it's not a Blue Jays story.

Dave Till - Sunday, September 06 2009 @ 07:09 AM EDT (#205864) #

I don't think that MLB cares that the Yankees have such a dominant payroll. People want to see the Yankees in the post-season, either because they want them to win or because they want them to get stomped. When the Yankees don't make the playoffs, television ratings suffer. This holds true, to a lesser extent, for the Dodgers as well.

(Years ago, I wondered whether it might be best just to put the Yankees in their own division: you'd have the AL East, the AL Central, the AL West, and the Yankees. The winners of each of the three divisions and the Yankees would advance to the playoffs.)

I still wonder what would have happened if the Jays had been able to sign one big bat and two starting pitchers during this past off-season, instead of having to go into the season minus one starter.

Jim - Sunday, September 06 2009 @ 08:23 AM EDT (#205865) #

How could the Blue Jays possibly be expected to compete with a team that has it's own TV network?

It's absurd that a team located in a metro area of 5.5 million people has been run into the ground to the point that they are spending like Cleveland and Pittsburgh.

LouisvilleJayFan - Sunday, September 06 2009 @ 11:03 AM EDT (#205867) #

As disheartening as the Jays status is on this is, I feel really bad for the Cubs fans out there. They spend, but they still can't win. It's all that damn goat's fault.

nanook - Sunday, September 06 2009 @ 11:14 AM EDT (#205868) #

First of all, love the site and am fascinated by numbers, always have been. My favourites are 36-24-36.
Also, Magpie, i really enjoyed the piece and I think many of us feel much the same.
I do, however have a small problem with your projections, or projections or any kind.
You said if the '07 Reds finished 76-75 that would have pushed them up in the standings.
How did you come to this conclusion?
Did you simply slot their new record into the standings, or did use use some magic to take wins from and add losses to all the other teams?
Simply changing the Reds record would not accurately reflect how those extra victories would have been appropriated. With extra wins come extra losses for someone else.
As I said above, LOVE THIS SITE and love the speculation, but there's a reason why
19th Century British Prime Minister Benjamin Disraeli is quoted as saying "there are lies, damn lies and statistics."

Mike Green - Sunday, September 06 2009 @ 11:19 AM EDT (#205869) #

"Annual payroll as of Sept. 1" is a junk economic statistic. Cot's has what you want. It is, of course, true that there is a strong correlation between spending money and winning baseball games.

Recession or not, Toronto's attendance this season has been poor relative to other smaller-market teams. In my view, this cycle could have been avoided if ownership had made the commitment to win.

VBF - Sunday, September 06 2009 @ 12:41 PM EDT (#205871) #

"How could the Blue Jays possibly be expected to compete with a team that has it's own TV network?"

How could the Blue Jays be expected to compete when their owner sees them as a marketing expense?

VBF - Sunday, September 06 2009 @ 01:01 PM EDT (#205873) #

Recession or not, Toronto's attendance this season has been poor relative to other smaller-market teams. In my view, this cycle could have been avoided if ownership had made the commitment to win.

And this is the problem when a public company whose shareholders and board of directors have no interest in baseball. Nevermind no interest, they're just looking at the best interests of the firm. Unfortunately for us, it's them doing their job.

There is a high probability that if you control your costs, you can make a small profit in baseball with the worst attendance in the league. The Marlins will make more money this year than most teams. The relationship is inverse. If you spend a lot of money in player personnel, there is a smaller chance of making a lot of money. There's an even smaller chance in this division if you're the Blue Jays. It's risk vs reward and baseball is not Rogers core business. They won't risk losing a lot of money if they can avoid it.

Despite this, Rogers needs the Jays. Combine the Jays with Sportsnet and it's an opportunity to communicate their products and services to 2.2 million people in person each season and 20.25 million people on television. There's a cellphone store behind home plate. It's everywhere. The best part is that in regular business you have to pay for all of these services. The Jays have the chance to make money off it and still have the greatest marketing tool that Bell doesn't have. Unless they decide to commit the next 5 years to player development and somehow get a 3 year window to compete and have everything break right (like the Rays have), I just don't see how they aren't doomed to mediocrity. If Rogers paid the Blue Jays and Sportsnet for all of the sponsorships they use, I think the Jays could easily have a 120 million dollar payroll. It's highway robbery.

I remember reading from Blair (I think) how he thought Beeston and his group might purchase the team and if so, that would turn everything around. This is exactly why the NFL doesn't let more than 25 individuals own a team.

TamRa - Sunday, September 06 2009 @ 01:38 PM EDT (#205874) #

It's a measurement at Sept 1 of all players on the 40-man. It's not sloppy. They don't pretend it's something it's not. And it's not a Blue Jays story.

I know it's not a Blue Jays story, do you really think I'm a complete moron?

I respectfully maintain that it is QUIET sloppy because it proports to be a comparison of what each team actually spends on payroll in 2009.

It's not.

It won't be just the jays, any player who changed teams mid-season will have his total salary assigned to the new team and none to the old team and to the casual reader that would imply that his team spent something more or less than what the team actually spent.

These people get paid to report accurately, not to slap together an innacurate presentation.

If you don't think there will be imbicles all over the net who will cite that figure - since USAToday is supposedly a reliable source, and grumble for the next 10 years that the jays slashed payroll by $40 million in 2009 then you haven't been paying attention.

92-93 - Sunday, September 06 2009 @ 01:55 PM EDT (#205875) #

Jesus Will, RTFA. It doesn't purport to be a comparison of what teams spent this year; it says very clearly, as you were already told, that it's the payrolls of the Sept 1. 40 man rosters.

92-93 - Sunday, September 06 2009 @ 01:59 PM EDT (#205876) #

Travis Snider has shown pretty poor outfield instincts the past few days. There's no way Matsui should have scored from first on that bloop, Snider's head needs to be in the game and always thinking of where the ball is going next.

jmoney - Sunday, September 06 2009 @ 02:05 PM EDT (#205877) #

Yankees got a lot of cheap hits that inning. At least they came out and played total slop defense to give the Jays the lead back.

PeterG - Sunday, September 06 2009 @ 05:50 PM EDT (#205887) #

Not being from Toronto, I somehow missed the Blair story on the possibility of Beeston and his group buying the team. Can someone post a link. Also, I would be interested in hearing comments on how realistic this might be whether Beeston group or anyone else. Maybe this could be the subject of a future thread of its own?

Spifficus - Sunday, September 06 2009 @ 05:53 PM EDT (#205888) #

Jesus Will, RTFA. It doesn't purport to be a comparison of what teams spent this year; it says very clearly, as you were already told, that it's the payrolls of the Sept 1. 40 man rosters.

Yes, he stated his definition, but given Nightengale's other statements in the article (such as the lead-in line "Baseball organizations have been reminded that the game's most powerful component often is a fat wallet.") it's probably not the best way to look at the issue. Toronto's contribution to players' pockets is quite different than their 40-man roster payroll on Sept 1st. Is this even counting Ryan? If it weren't for a late selloff, Chicago would be another mis-represented team. The Dodgers belong a lot closer to the middle of the pack if not for their late season additions.

The major issue with the article is that it's already starting to get misinterpreted with respect to the Jays. Neyer wrote on his ESPN blog "Meanwhile, the Blue Jays -- 24th in the majors in payroll -- are just 60-75 but have a positive run differential." Now, Neyer's great, but it's this second-hand reporting, detached from context, that becomes the most misleading because Nightengale can always claim (correctly) that he had defined his terms.

brent - Sunday, September 06 2009 @ 08:11 PM EDT (#205893) #

My new favorite hobby is watching Rios become an anchor on the White Sox.

http://chicago.whitesox.mlb.com/stats/individual_stats_player.jsp?c_id=cws&playerID=425567

He's at 75Ab now and still struggling.

TamRa - Sunday, September 06 2009 @ 09:49 PM EDT (#205898) #

Jesus Will, RTFA. It doesn't purport to be a comparison of what teams spent this year; it says very clearly, as you were already told, that it's the payrolls of the Sept 1. 40 man rosters.

Whether or not he employed the methodology he said he did is not in dispute - the conclusion he drew from it is.

If the regular season ended today, seven of the top nine highest-paid teams would be in the playoffs,

Logically, "highest paid teams" is the teams salary outlay for the season. If all the wins and losses in a season are relevant, then all the salary outlay for the rosters which accumulated those wins and loses is relevant, and nothing else.

Now of course he clearly states that's payroll as of September 1 and doesn't account for partial salaries paid by other teams - I'm not arguing the methodology he claimed to use.

What I was debating - and still am - is that Nightengale drew a conclusion from the data he chose to use that the data doesn't support.

Now, it might be that the accurate data WOULD prove the exact same conclusion, but in terms of intellectual honesty, he made a point and supported it with an inappropriate data set.

And in so doing he gives rise to misinformation that will propagate throughout his readership.

Excuse the heck out of me for expecting more from highly paid writers than that.

greenfrog - Sunday, September 06 2009 @ 10:52 PM EDT (#205901) #

I confess to a kind of morbid fascination with Rios's apparent free fall (and I'm glad the Jays allowed Chicago to claim him), but I actually hope he turns it around.

Speaking of Latin players, I watched "Sugar" on DVD yesterday (fictional but realistic film about a highly-regarded Dominican prospect who gets signed by KC and makes his way from the DR to the US). It's worth seeing--a well-made movie that provides a different perspective on the life of a Latin American prospect, and the baseball industry in general.

Spifficus - Sunday, September 06 2009 @ 11:24 PM EDT (#205902) #

but I actually hope (Rios) turns it around.

I do, too. I've never been one for the Al Leiter treatment for players. I just like watching good baseball, and when Rios is going well, he's fun to watch. There is a morbid element, too, though - I want to see what his brain cramps look like when he's an opposing player.

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