When I started thinking about this subject yesterday I was going to compare money in baseball to Steroids. You hear lots of people talking about how bad steroids have been for the game. You also hear people talking about the uneven playing field created by money. So the question is: Is Money Runing Major League Baseball?
Here are some facts. The New York Yankees have the highest payroll in MLB again this year. The 2008 payroll for the Yankees is $209,081,577. The combined payroll of the 5 lowest teams is $217,250,006. The Yankees have 3 players making over $20,000,000 this season.
Jason Giambi $23,428,571 Derek Jeter $21,600,000 Alex Rodriquez $28,000,000
Those 3 players combined make more than the entire payroll of 11 teams.
The payroll for the Florida Marlins is $21,811,500. Thats for the ENTIRE team! Jason Giambi and A Rod both make more than the entire Florida Marlins team and Derek Jeter is right there too.
So now back to the question of Is Money Ruining Major League Baseball? Of the top ten teams in payroll for 2008:
4 are in first place in their divison
1 is in second place in its division
2 are in third place in their division
2 are in 4th place in their division
1 is in last place in its division
Of the 10 teams with the lowest payroll for 2008:
4 are in last place in their division
1 is in third place in its division
2 are in 2nd place in its division
3 are in first place in their division
The Florida Marlins (30th in payroll) and the Oakland Athletics (28th in payroll) are both currently atop their respective divisions.
So what does all this mean? It seems like there are some teams at the bottom of the payroll list that are competitive every year , such as the A's and the Twins. Then you have teams that are spending a ton of money and are near the bottom. So maybe having great coaching, a good farm system, and making the right personel decisions is more important that how much money you are actually spending.
Thats my 2 cents worth, and I know it's still very early in the season and things will change. But thats what's fun about baseball. A bunch of no name kids just up from the minors with a couple of seasoned veterans thrown in can make things interesting. It's going to be a fun season.
My source for the payroll figures is http://content.usatoday.com/sports/baseball/salaries/totalpayroll.aspx?year=2008
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