You guys want to look at a table?
(Data from The Baseball Cube)
| Team | Payroll (Millions of $) | Wins | $M/Win | $M/WAB |
| Tampa Bay Rays | 689.70 | 809 | 0.9 | 3.3 |
| Cleveland Guardians | 921.37 | 845 | 1.1 | 3.8 |
| Oakland Athletics | 759.89 | 772 | 1.0 | 4.4 |
| Milwaukee Brewers | 952.44 | 778 | 1.2 | 5.4 |
| Houston Astros | 1,242.79 | 832 | 1.5 | 5.4 |
| Pittsburgh Pirates | 715.63 | 726 | 1.0 | 5.7 |
| St. Louis Cardinals | 1,444.18 | 848 | 1.7 | 5.8 |
| Atlanta Braves | 1,203.55 | 793 | 1.5 | 6.2 |
| Los Angeles Dodgers | 2,222.39 | 931 | 2.4 | 6.7 |
| Seattle Mariners | 1,159.89 | 762 | 1.5 | 7.2 |
| Toronto Blue Jays | 1,341.63 | 770 | 1.7 | 7.9 |
| New York Yankees | 2,076.81 | 858 | 2.4 | 8.0 |
| Chicago Cubs | 1,528.93 | 789 | 1.9 | 8.1 |
| Boston Red Sox | 1,823.97 | 818 | 2.2 | 8.4 |
| Washington Nationals | 1,527.96 | 778 | 2.0 | 8.6 |
| Minnesota Twins | 1,111.38 | 729 | 1.5 | 8.6 |
| New York Mets | 1,483.93 | 767 | 1.9 | 8.9 |
| Kansas City Royals | 1,043.15 | 713 | 1.5 | 9.2 |
| Arizona Diamondbacks | 972.69 | 704 | 1.4 | 9.4 |
| San Francisco Giants | 1,634.88 | 766 | 2.1 | 9.8 |
| San Diego Padres | 1,137.07 | 707 | 1.6 | 10.6 |
| Los Angeles Angels | 1,633.63 | 743 | 2.2 | 11.4 |
| Baltimore Orioles | 994.01 | 687 | 1.4 | 11.4 |
| Chicago White Sox | 1,151.87 | 700 | 1.6 | 11.5 |
| Colorado Rockies | 1,157.63 | 700 | 1.7 | 11.6 |
| Texas Rangers | 1,390.48 | 714 | 1.9 | 12.2 |
| Cincinnati Reds | 1,124.14 | 684 | 1.6 | 13.4 |
| Miami Marlins | 713.76 | 653 | 1.1 | 13.5 |
| Philadelphia Phillies | 1,450.43 | 704 | 2.1 | 13.9 |
| Detroit Tigers | 1,416.58 | 684 | 2.1 | 16.9 |
What we’re looking at here is MLB payrolls and wins over the last ten years, with the columns on the right representing how many million dollars were spent per win and how many million dollars were spent per win above 60-a-year. We’re measuring efficiency. Efficient franchises are at the top. Inefficient franchises are at the bottom.
You want to look at a graph?
(That’s the White Sox and Rockies tied at 700 wins, having spent almost the exact same amount of money to get those 700 wins.)
Things I take away from this, things I think about this, etc.:
- The Rays and Guardians, as you might think, have been extremely efficient with their money these last few years.
- The A’s, Astros, Cardinals, and Dodgers are also notably far from the trendline on the efficient side.
- The Marlins have been devastatingly inefficient. So have the Phillies, Tigers, and even Rangers and Angels.
- There’s a clump of “small market” teams (I use the quotes because the White Sox are included) who spend the same amount as one another and lose the same amount as one another.
- Are some of the large market teams flashing efficient because they can also invest a lot in their development systems? For economics students, this is kind of like the productivity value in production functions. What’s determining the gap between the trendline and each franchise? Everything that isn’t payroll.
- Seven of the last ten World Series have been won by teams on the efficient side of the trendline. The Nationals are right on top of the trendline. The Giants and Royals are on the inefficient side of the trendline.
- This is kind of a small sample, but also possibly too large? Ownership has changed with some of these teams. Front office staffs have changed with many of these teams. Still…if you were asked who runs an efficient franchise, I think you’d answer with almost all the teams this indicates. Nothing on this is surprising.
