Sports: Money Doesn't Guarantee Success, BUT...

In my never ending quest to spotlight the gross economic inequities in Major League Baseball, today I'm going to show the direct relationship between money and success.

Before now, I've focused instead on the lack of parity in baseball compared to the NBA and NFL. Additionally, we snapped our fingers and observed what baseball would look like if it mimicked the NBA's financial disparities.

Still, we've yet to show the direct correlation between money and success (as obvious as it may otherwise seem). So let's do that.

We know that money does not guarantee success. And not spending huge sums of money will not guarantee failure. Particularly covering a one or two year time frame.

However, over a five or 10 year period, I'm confident that we can reasonably expect that the vast majority of teams that succeed have spent money and the vast majority of teams that fail will spend the least.

Below is a chart of all teams during the past 10 years, their record, win/loss rank, average payroll, and payroll rank.

Team	10 yr %	$ Avg	W/L Rank	$ Rank	Diff
NY Yankees	.598	$167,123,746	1	1	0
Boston	.568	$116,826,442	2	2	0
St. Louis	.564	$83,161,682	3	9	6
LA Angels	.556	$88,366,382	4	7	3
Atlanta	.551	$92,756,206	5	5	0
Oakland	.550	$52,293,616	6	24	18
LA Dodgers	.532	$100,205,132	7	4	-3
Minnesota	.532	$50,235,304	7	25	18
San Francisco	.529	$78,967,826	9	11	2
Chicago Sox	.529	$77,392,133	10	12	2
Philadelphia	.525	$79,506,314	11	10	-1
Seattle	.517	$88,143,915	12	8	-4
Houston	.514	$77,137,108	13	13	0
Cleveland	.504	$65,073,842	14	19	5
NY Mets	.504	$108,669,499	14	3	-11
Florida	.502	$35,286,529	16	30	14
Chicago Cubs	.499	$90,704,693	17	6	-11
Toronto	.497	$67,931,916	18	18	0
Arizona	.497	$73,153,640	19	16	-3
Texas	.479	$75,197,417	20	15	-5
Colorado	.474	$60,999,990	21	20	-1
San Diego	.474	$54,458,302	22	22	0
Cincinnati	.464	$58,340,608	23	21	-2
Milwaukee	.458	$52,893,517	24	23	-1
Detroit	.450	$76,179,991	25	14	-11
Washington	.439	$46,455,467	26	27	1
Baltimore	.432	$71,776,769	27	17	-10
Tampa Bay	.429	$40,130,874	28	29	1
Pittsburgh	.421	$43,445,782	29	28	-1
Kansas City	.415	$47,399,533	30	26	-4

Let's talk about what this means. As I've said before, spending money offers no guarantees. Some teams will spend money and fail because of poor decisions. Other teams will not spend money and find other ways to succeed.

In my opinion (though this is far from scientific), you can reasonably expect your spending rank and winning percentage rank to be close to one another, falling within about 10 spots of one another.

As you can see by the chart above, seven teams were able to fall outside of that expected range. Three teams (Oakland, Minnesota and Florida) have been able to succeed far above their expected rate despite a lack of significant spending.

Three other teams (New York Mets, Chicago Cubs, Detroit Tigers and Baltimore Orioles) prove that spending money must be complemented by sound decisions. These teams fell far below their expected rate of success.

Just as important as these results is that the two teams that spent the most money during the past 10 years (New York Yankees and Boston Red Sox) are also the two teams with the best winning percentages during that time.

Coincidence? I think not.

The Yankees also had the highest payroll in each of those 10 years. In fact, they've had the highest payroll in all but three seasons dating back to 1993, and in each of those three seasons they finished in the top three.

While we've previously talked about the appearance of more parity in baseball during the past five seasons, that isn't true in this study. Here are the stats for the past five years:

Team	5 yr %	$ Avg	W/L Rank	$ Rank	Diff
NY Yankees	.590	$200,627,941	1	1	0
LA Angels	.586	$108,674,798	2	4	2
Boston	.577	$128,353,439	3	2	-1
Philadelphia	.552	$96,899,494	4	10	6
St. Louis	.541	$89,702,917	5	13	8
Minnesota	.533	$62,650,708	6	22	16
Chicago Sox	.529	$100,771,666	7	7	0
NY Mets	.527	$120,957,962	8	3	-5
LA Dodgers	.519	$101,788,768	9	6	-3
Cleveland	.510	$63,951,300	10	20	10
Detroit	.510	$99,931,115	10	8	-2
Chicago Cubs	.507	$106,856,519	12	5	-7
Atlanta	.507	$92,599,372	13	11	-2
Toronto	.507	$75,581,900	13	15	2
Milwaukee	.505	$65,921,933	15	18	3
Oakland	.503	$61,462,581	16	24	8
Houston	.499	$89,803,266	17	12	-5
Florida	.498	$32,911,967	18	30	12
Texas	.494	$65,657,492	19	19	0
Colorado	.492	$57,533,700	20	25	5
San Diego	.490	$61,741,871	21	23	2
Arizona	.488	$62,760,063	22	21	-1
San Francisco	.472	$85,937,185	23	14	-9
Seattle	.470	$99,749,130	24	9	-15
Cincinnati	.465	$67,876,655	25	17	-8
Tampa Bay	.463	$39,270,833	26	29	3
Baltimore	.426	$74,870,527	27	16	-11
Washington	.424	$52,872,200	28	27	-1
Pittsburgh	.409	$44,154,273	29	28	-1
Kansas City	.404	$56,011,267	30	26	-4

This time, there are only five teams that fall outside of their expected window of success. The Twins, Indians and Marlins found ways to succeed beyond their payroll while the Mariners and Orioles have failed despite shelling out large dollars.

Also, three of the top four in spending (the Mets excluded) have had the three best winning percentages during the past five years.

Are teams that spend money guaranteed to succeed? No, but the likelihood is much greater that they will.

Are teams that don't spend large sums of money guaranteed to fail? No, but they are not able to build teams the way that big spenders can and must get creative to exceed expectations.

In either case, the outliers are rare exceptions. During the past 10 years, 23 of the 30 teams have win/loss and spending ranks that fall within a +/- 10 rank window. During the past five years, 25 teams qualify.

While spending money wisely should be a factor in resultant success, the amount of spending should not be a determinant.

Unfortunately, that's currently the case. Without a salary cap or other structure to modify the current payroll disparity, a minority of teams will continue to spend more to give them a built-in advantage.