The Money Myth

Why do stupid people in baseball get a free pass? Actually, I should say, why do stupid poor people in baseball get a free pass?

No matter the sport, there's always stupid people making stupid decisions for bad teams. The NBA has the Clippers and the Knicks. The NFL has the Browns and the Bengals. Major League Baseball has the Cubs, Pirates, and Royals. It's just the way it is.

In the salary cap sports, bad decision makers are called out and it makes perfect sense. In baseball, if you're in the top half of the payroll chart and make bad decisions annually, you're usually called out as well. (See: Cubs, Chicago. Mets, New York)

But when poor teams make as many -or more- bad decisions than most, you hear a different tune. You hear about how unfair it is that the Yankees spend half a billion dollars and they can't afford it and how a salary cap would fix their problems and they don't have enough money to win and if it wasn't for the Yankees or Red Sox they wouldn't have stubbed their toe earlier in the day.

So how much money are World Series winners spending? The last 10 seasons, the average World Series winner has been No. 10 on the payroll list. Barely in the top 1/3 of spending. The Yankees have been No. 1 in payroll every year in that span and have as many title as the Marlins (25th the year they won) and one less title than the Cardinals (11th both years they won).


It's easy to say money doesn't automatically equal wins and be met with a "yeah, but it sure does help a ton" argument. And that's true. Teams with more money can make terrible trades or free-agent signings and not be sunk when it's a face-plant. Poor teams have to be more careful. That hasn't stopped the Tampa Bay Rays (28th avg payroll last 10 yrs) from competing in the game's toughest division for the last 4 seasons.

It's safe to say that once you're in the playoffs, it's any one's trophy to win. Three Wild Card teams have won the World Series the last 10 years while 4 others have played in the World Series.

The last 10 seasons, 22 different teams have made the playoffs out of 30 possible teams, about 73% of the teams. In the NFL, 30/32 have made postseason play,  about 93%. But they also have four more playoff teams every year, 12 instead of just 8. So the numbers are much closer. And what about winning championships?

The last 10 years, baseball has had 8 different World Series winners and another 5 teams who made the Series. The NFL, who is supposedly the bastion of fair play and the everyone-has-an-equal-shot league, has had 7 different winners.

When the Raiders draft Robert Gallery over Larry Fitzgerald, or when the Cardinals take Levi Brown over Adrian Peterson, they're just dumb decisions. And when the Yankees give Carl Pavano $40 million it was just a terrible idea, and rightly so. But when the Pirates trade Aramis Ramirez for some guy named Matt Brubeck, it's suddenly the Yankees' fault.

Sometimes you don't need $200 million to win. Sometimes people just aren't smart.