According to Major League Baseball (MLB), the sport is
competitive and balanced, just look at what Bud Selig (Commissioner) had to
say, "There's
more competitive balance than ever in the history of baseball." While
this statement makes a good headline, the truth is, the more money you can spend
in baseball, the better your team will be.
Baseball is one of the few sports without a salary cap. This
means each team can spend as much money as they want to build their roster. As
you can imagine, larger markets like New York can outspend smaller market teams
like Kansas City to get better players. According to Wikipedia, “Several sports leagues have
implemented salary caps, [to] ensure parity between teams so wealthy teams
cannot entrench dominance by signing many more top players than their rivals.”
To investigate further, we must first decide if there is a large salary
discrepancy between teams and if teams with higher salaries win more
games.
As you can see from the payroll data, there is an extremely
large discrepancy in payroll between teams. This is evident from the very large
range and the fact that the payroll average is ~$44,000,000 higher than the median.
Pittsburg Pirates GM Bob Nutting had this to say about team payrolls, "Is it easier to build a great club with
$200 million than with $75-$80 million? Absolutely.” Over the last 4 seasons, the average
number of wins by all of the teams who made the playoffs was 93.92. Teams with
higher payrolls, in general, have won more games per year than teams with lower
payrolls.
Instead of addressing the salary cap problem, Baseball has
chosen to expand the number of available playoff spots from 2 teams (when the
sport originated) to the 10 team format we see today. Smaller market teams have
a higher chance of making the playoffs because more playoff spots are available.
So,
how does a team with a low payroll make the playoffs? It’s a combination of
brilliant management and luck. For example, Oakland has made the playoffs 2 out
of the past 4 seasons while averaging ~87 wins per season despite having a
payroll in 10th percentile. How
have they done this? Through exceptional management and smart business
decisions coined “Moneyball”. “[Oakland]
buoyed by massive amounts of carefully interpreted statistical data, believed
that wins could be had by more affordable methods such as hitters with high
on-base percentage and pitchers who get lots of ground outs.”
A sport cannot be considered balanced when the best players
earn the most money. The highest spending team, the New York Yankees, spent
more money on their team payroll in 2013, than Oakland, Pittsburg, and San
Diego have spent on their respective teams in the past 4 years. By repeatedly
expanding the number of available playoff spots, MLB has given the illusion of
competitive balance but has only created a Band-Aid solution to the real
problem which is not having a salary cap.
Link to Original Article:
Payroll &
Statistical Data Retrieved From:
Links to Quotes:
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