Where did spending get you?
We looked a bit at free agents the other day. The gist of it is that turning the Cubs around is not going to be done by just throwing lots of money at the problem because there’s not much worthwhile to throw that money at. With the MLB regular season winding down, I’ve constructed a table of 2012 Opening Day payrolls vs. position in the standings. You can draw your own conclusions.
The first set of data comes from Steve the Ump, who has compiled a list of all team payrolls for the past decade. There were some discrepancies, mostly stemming from the Cubs’ number, that gave me pause. and when double-checking with OV’s payroll calculations, it seems that Steve the Ump forgot to take into account a couple deferments or something. So I included the Cot’s Baseball Contracts numbers to the table. The table also includes the team’s current position in the standings as of the posting of this blog.
| Team | Payroll | Cots | Standing |
| New York Yankees | $ 197,962,289 | $209,792,900 | T-1st AL East, T-2nd WC |
| Philadelphia Phillies | $ 174,538,938 | $172,093,902 | 3rd NL East, 3 GB WC |
| Boston Red Sox | $ 173,186,617 | $175,249,119 | 5th AL East |
| Los Angeles Angels | $ 154,485,166 | $151,381,000 | 3rd AL West, 3.5 GB WC |
| Detroit Tigers | $ 132,300,000 | $133,475,000 | 2nd AL Central, 5 GB WC |
| Texas Rangers | $ 120,510,974 | $120,836,000 | 1st AL West |
| Miami Marlins | $ 118,078,000 | $101,628,000 | 5th NL East |
| San Francisco Giants | $ 117,620,683 | $131,355,298 | 1st NL West |
| St. Louis Cardinals | $ 110,300,862 | $111,858,500 | 2nd NL Central, 2nd WC |
| Milwaukee Brewers | $ 97,653,944 | $98,150,833 | 4th NL Central, 3 GB WC |
| Chicago White Sox | $ 96,919,500 | $97,669,500 | 1st AL Central |
| Los Angeles Dodgers | $ 95,143,575 | $105,419,833 | 2nd NL West, 1 GB WC |
| Minnesota Twins | $ 94,085,000 | $100,435,000 | T-4th AL Central |
| New York Mets | $ 93,353,983 | $94,508,822 | 4th NL East |
| Chicago Cubs | $ 88,197,033 | $109,316,000 | 5th NL Central |
| Atlanta Braves | $ 83,309,942 | $93,529,667 | 2nd NL East, 1st WC |
| Cincinnati Reds | $ 82,203,616 | $87,826,167 | 1st NL Central |
| Seattle Mariners | $ 81,978,100 | $84,928,100 | 4th AL West |
| Baltimore Orioles | $ 81,428,999 | $84,102,333 | T-1st AL East, T-2nd WC |
| Washington Nationals | $ 81,336,143 | $92,534,929 | 1st NL East |
| Cleveland Indians | $ 78,430,300 | $65,430,300 | T-4th AL Central |
| Colorado Rockies | $ 78,069,571 | $81,135,571 | 5th NL West |
| Toronto Blue Jays | $ 75,489,200 | $83,739,200 | 4th AL East |
| Arizona Diamondbacks | $ 74,284,833 | $75,417,833 | 3rd NL West, 4 GB WC |
| Tampa Bay Rays | $ 64,173,500 | $63,627,200 | 3rd AL East, 3 GB WC |
| Pittsburgh Pirates | $ 63,431,999 | $51,932,333 | 3rd NL Central, 2.5 GB WC |
| Kansas City Royals | $ 60,916,225 | $64,001,725 | 3rd AL Central |
| Houston Astros | $ 60,651,000 | $60,799,000 | 6th NL Central |
| Oakland Athletics | $ 55,372,500 | $52,873,000 | 2nd AL West, 1st WC |
| San Diego Padres | $ 55,244,700 | $55,621,900 | 4th NL West, 6.5 GB WC |
You should take into account the fact that some of the teams have had injuries to their best players, so it’s not a direct correlation between spending and success (or lack thereof). Some teams have also begun clearing payroll in their version of a fire sale, even before the season started. Very interesting to look at this data though and go “hmmmm…”