Have the Yankees ever spent a period of time not at the top of the payroll charts? I’m not going to say it’s unrelated, but, well, when have the Yankees not been one of the best teams in baseball? Of course, the money certainly helps, but the inherent winning character of the team is as much a truism as the Mets’ uncanny ability to fail after raising hopes.
The Yankees weren’t one of the best teams in baseball in the mid-1980’s. It was a joyous time, when cats and dogs laid down together and children, they smiled a little wider. Ice cream was free everywhere and Jesse Barfield was leading the team in OPS. It was a great time. The sun shone brighter then.
<sighs wistfully>
I do, and I did, and his evidence has convinced me that having a high payroll is indeed a competitive advantage. The only thing he did was quibble about how much of a competitive advantage they get. It is inarguable that the advantage is nonzero. In short, MLB does not have a level playing field.
Using the enumerated datapoints:
1. In every season, at least one team below the median payroll has made the playoffs.
In a fair league this should be four, not “at least one”. To put it another way, it should be reasonable to say “at least one team above the median payroll has made the playoffs.” While true, it is so understated as to be unreasonable.
2. In four of eight seasons, three out of eight playoffs teams were below the median payroll.
In other words, every other year at least 75% of the playoff teams were above the median payroll, and in every single year they are a majority. That sounds like a huge imbalance to me.
3. The number 1 payroll team (The Yankees) have made the playoffs every year. The number 2 team has made it only three times.
We’re agreed that the Yankees are an exaggerated case. Note that this bullet point includes a subtle cherry-picking. Part of the reason that the second place team “only” made it three times in the past eight years is because the second place team was often in the same division as the Yankees, and thus have a harder row to hoe to earn a spot than other teams. Especially as compared to the NL.
When the Red Sox have the second-highest payroll, how do their playoff appearances compare to the other (non-Yankee) AL East teams?
4. Of a total 64 possible playoff teams, 11 have been in the bottom third of the league in terms of Opening Day payroll.
So the lowest 33% of the league payroll-wise only have a 17% chance to make the postseason. Clearly the lower payroll teams are at a serious disadvantage.
I do not have the data to be sure, but this smells like a strawman. Why do teams “expect to be less successful” in the first place? I’m guessing one contributing factor is that they’re at a payroll disadvantage to begin with. I don’t actually know, though, as baseball isn’t my sport.
Are there examples of high-payroll teams losing a lot and then shedding money, then go on the next year to be high payroll again? Or do they spend a ton for a limited time, and if it doesn’t work out they jettison the stars and lick their wounds as a low-payroll team for a couple years?
No one is arguing that it isn’t a competitive advantage to have a higher payroll. If it wasn’t, teams would be spending very poorly. However, the original question was whether small market team’s can compete, and clearly the answer is yes.
If you’re looking for the results to come out “fair” every time, you should be looking at statistics on dice rolling, not professional sports.
That’s moving the goalposts. I believe the original assertion was that small market teams can compete just fine, which they clearly cannot. They can compete intermittently, but they labor under significant disadvantage.
I was trying to convey the huge disparity of:[ul][li]Every year at least ONE team below median payroll makes the playoffs.[/li][*]Every year at least FIVE teams above median payroll make the playoffs.[/ul]I concede that my narrative was lacking on this point upthread. Hopefully this clarification helps explain what I was getting at.
Compete doesn’t mean an equal chance. It means a chance.
The larger issue is that you are confusing causation with correlation.
Do you know who had the higest payroll in 1990?
The Kansas City Royals.
How bout 1991?
That would the Oakland A’s.
1992 and 1993 was the Toronto Blue Jays.
Those big market teams just made it so the little guys couldn’t compete right?
Just because teams don’t spend money, doesn’t mean they can’t.
But this is clearly untrue. Especially when comparing the actual payrolls between teams.
For the 2008 season, the difference between #1 (the Yankees) and #2 (Detroit) is $70 million.
A $70 million difference covers every team from #14 (the Astros at $89 million) to #30 (the Marlins at $21 million). Only a few million separate each team within those 17 teams and in baseball, a few million in team payroll is nothing.
How does this refute anything I’ve said, while not at the same time – and for the same reason – refute storyteller’s “informed mythbusting”?
Actually, I’m pretty sure that in common usage, it’s almost always assumed to mean an equal chance, not just a chance.
Great data, but your conclusion is arguable.
Here is the breakout by fifths
Top fifth - 38% of available playoff slots
2nd - 25%
3rd - 17%
4th - 9%
5th - 11%
This, to me, is more than a “modest” advantage. The bottom 40% of payroll gets 20% of the playoff slots, and the top 20% have almost 40% of the slots.
Because you’re saying that if teams don’t have exactly the same payroll, they don’t have the same chance. While I’m saying that every team from the middle of the pack to the bottom are only separated by a few million in overall team payroll, an insignificant difference in baseball.
But if these breakdowns aren’t legitimate, why doesn’t this call storyteller’s original analysis into question?
Remember, I have brought no data whatsoever into this thread. My analysis is based on his numbers, which you seem to accept when he spins them but refute when I do. You can’t have it both ways, because they are the same numbers.
If you have a chance to compete, then you spend more money. Those extra wins when you are projected to be an 85 win team mean a lot more than if you were projected to be a 65 win team. Thus, winning teams will have higher payrolls. It isn’t just for the reason, but it is a large part of it. Since 1990, 26 teams have had a payroll in the top ten at least once. Almost everyone is capable of spending money, which is a pretty good barometer for fairness.
So an underdog is never competing?
Do teams project to win 85 instead of 65 partly because they started out with a higher payroll?
Are you being deliberately obtuse?
It is a factor, but not the primary one. A bigger factor would be how well a team develops young talent. That also can be affected by money, but again it isn’t the main competent.
Okay, how bout this. The mets are generally considered the favorite to win their division. Let’s say they have a 50% of winning the division. Let’s say the phillies and braves have a 25% chance each. I would consider the phillies and Braves as able to compete, even if they are less likely to win. Would you?
Certainly, the advantage of a higher payroll is nonzero. Anyone who would deny that isn’t paying attention to the numbers. A team that spends $100M on its players will likely enjoy more success, all other things being equal (they’re not, they never are, of course, but still) than a team that spends $50M.
But it’s not “quibbling” to say that the advantage is smaller than it is being portrayed.
There are any number of ways in which the playing field is less than level in every sport. You’re a football guy, right? Would you say that even absent payroll disparity, the Dallas Cowboys or New York Giants enjoy a certain nonzero advantage in terms of attracting high profile free agents and signing high profile draft picks? That, for example, a highly touted quarterback might refuse to go to a lower-profile market, forcing a trade to a higher-profile market? In such a case, the playing field is not perfectly level; at least in the market for Eli Manning’s services, the Giants enjoyed a nonzero advantage over the San Diego Chargers.
The Seattle Seahawks and Green Bay Packers enjoy home field advantages of significantly more impact than, say, the home field advantage of the Kansas City Chiefs. The playing field there is not perfectly level.
What I am arguing is that the impact of payroll is relatively minor. And “payroll” is not the same as “buying power;” more on that to come.
Not true, substantially for the reason that you have dismissed as a strawman. More on that later.
But it’s only an imbalance if the teams line up in the same order every year. In baseball, payrolls may fluctuate considerably. Again dismissing the outliers (the Yankees always spend a lot; the Pirates never do), a given team may end well above the median one year, at the median the next, and below the median the following year. All the teams (well, most of the teams) have the ability and willingness to spend above the median - which is all that’s required. You don’t have to land in the top five, just be above the median. Nearly every team can and does do this, and thus, none of the teams (well, again, nearly none of the teams) operate at any disadvantage because of it. Buying power is largely the same even where payroll is not.
OK. Conceded. It still doesn’t account for the multiple years in which teams other than the Red Sox filled that #2 slot and missed the playoffs, though.
Obviously, quite well. But that particular case is unique, because two of the three other non-Yankee AL East teams have been wildly mismanaged. If you think the reason that the Orioles and the Rays haven’t been competitive in the last ten years is payroll-related, then you haven’t been watching the Orioles and Rays.
First: I’m getting tired of writing “The Yankees excepted” in every paragraph, so I’m just going ask you to take that as read. The Yankees are unique, and discussion of them really needs to be it’s own topic.
That aside, yes, this phenomenon is neither a strawman nor irrelevant; it’s an essential part of what baseball is. Every team goes through this cycle to some extent or another; midseason salary dumps by noncontending teams are as much a part of the sport as double plays. If you have six teams with identical payrolls going into free agency, but three of those teams have been well-managed and seem likely to be competitive, and three have been mismanaged and are not, which team is going to sign the 38-year-old first baseman to a $15 million contract? Which team is going to trade away its veteran, $13M left-hander for a pair of highly-touted, underpaid minor leaguers?
The playing field here is perfectly level. But the better teams are going to tend to shoot for the moon, while weaker teams are going to divest salary and save for future runs; that’s going to partially contribute to the fact that better-compensated teams tend to be more likely to make the playoffs.
Not really, no. Let’s try a different example. We’ll flip a rigged coin that lands tails 75% of the time, heads 25%. Each time it lands tails, you give me a dollar, each time it lands heads, I give you a dollar.
I would consider you unable to compete with me in this game. Would you?