My wife and I saw the movie Moneyball shortly after it was released in movie theatres across the country and I have to say it was an interesting and entertaining movie. The underlying theme of the movie is that Major League Baseball is dominated by the teams with the highest payrolls and Billy Beane (General Manager of the Oakland Athletics) uses the principles from Michael Lewis’s book, Moneyball: The Art of Winning an Unfair Game, to compile a roster of players based on certain statistical categories, and these players come at a low cost due to the fact that other teams in Major League Baseball have no interest in these players. With the roster Beane compiles, the A’s make the playoffs; however, the team fails to make it past the first round of the playoffs. The movie highlights the perception that baseball is dominated by the few teams that have the highest payrolls; such as, the Boston Red Sox and the New York Yankees. If you believe this perception and if baseball really is an unfair game, logic would tell you that these same teams should win year after year. With spring training right around the corner I decided to examine this issue a little more closely to determine if this perception is true and I have discovered some surprising facts.
Let us begin by examining the eight playoff teams from the 2011 season and the payroll of each team. Of the eight playoff teams from 2011, according to USA Today there were only three teams that had payrolls ranked as one of the ten highest payrolls in Major League Baseball. Those teams are listed as follows:
- · New York Yankees – ranked 1st with a payroll of $202,689,028
- · Philadelphia Phillies – ranked 2nd with a payroll of $172,976,379
- · Detroit Tigers – ranked 10th with a payroll of $105,700,231
The other playoff teams are listed below:
- · St. Louis Cardinals – ranked 11th with a payroll of $105,433,572
- ·. These teams are listed below:
- · Boston Red Sox – ranked 3rd with a payroll of $161,762,475 (finished 3rd in the division)
- · LA Angels – ranked 4th with a payroll of $138,543,166 (finished 2nd in the division)
- · Chicago White Sox – ranked 5th with a payroll of $127,789,000 (finished 3rd in the division)
- · Chicago Cubs – ranked 6th with a payroll of $125,047,329 (finished 5th in the division)
- · New York Mets – ranked 7th with a payroll of $118,847,309 (finished 4th in the division)
- ·(finished last in the division)
Do all of these numbers really answer the question of whether or not baseball is an unfair game, or whether or not the same teams win year after year? My guess is that Billy Beane might say no. To further examine the question of whether baseball is an unfair game, I decided to look at the past ten World Series champions and the payroll rankings of those teams. My guess is if baseball is an unfair game and the same teams win every year, you would expect to see these teams winning the World Series. With that in mind, here are the last ten World Series champions:
- · 2011 – St. Louis Cardinals – 11th highest payroll
- ·. Louis Cardinals – 11th highest payroll
- · 2005 – Chicago White Sox – 13th highest payroll
- · 2004 – Boston Red Sox – 2nd highest payroll
- · 2003 – Miami (formerly Florida) Marlins – 25th highest payroll
- · 2002 – LA Angels – 15th highest payroll
If you look closely at these numbers you will notice that there are eight different teams that won the World Series during that period. Four of the teams had payrolls in the top ten and four did not. It is safe to assume that the National Football League is perceived to be a game of parody when it comes to competition; however, there have only been seven different Super Bowl winners in the past ten years, compared to the MLB’s eight different winners. Am I saying that baseball is a “fair” game, not necessarily, but I am saying that baseball is a fairer game than most people give it credit for. Is Moneyball the answer for winning an “unfair” game? I would say that has yet to be proven, after all, Billy Beane has yet to win a World Series using Moneyball and this is highlighted at the end of the movie when Beane’s Oakland A’s fail to make it out of the first round of the playoffs. A system that has worked for small market teams has been developing minor league players and signing those prospects to long-term contracts while those players are young and when they become superstars small market teams trade those players away to large market teams for more prospects. Only time will tell if “Moneyball” will work for Billy Beane.
Sources Cited:
2011 MLB Salaries by Team
http://content.usatoday.com/sportsdata/baseball/mlb/salaries/teamRelated Posts:
