baseball post season by salaries.
As Moneyball make the point, salary doesn’t necessarily determine the final standing in the league, but I wanted to see who and at what team salary made it to the playoffs.
Playoff Teams:
| record | team | playoffs | team salary (Million) | team salary rank | overall rank |
| .599 | Yankees | AL East | $198.6 | 1 | 1 |
| .599 | Mets | NL East | $100.9 | 5 | 1 |
| .593 | Twins | AL Central | $63.8 | 19 | 3 |
| .586 | Tigers | AL WC | $82.3 | 14 | 4 |
| .574 | Athletics | AL West | $62.3 | 21 | 5 |
| .543 | Padres | NL West | $69.7 | 17 | 8 |
| .543 | Dodgers | AL WC | $99.1 | 6 | 8 |
| .516 | Cardinals | NL Central | $88.4 | 11 | 13 |
Pretty interesting.
Out of the top 10 team (Yankees, Mets, Twins, Tigers, Athletics, White Sox, Angels, Dodgers, Paders, Blue Jays), four were in the bottom half of team salaries (Twins @ 19, Athletics @ 21, Padres @ 17, Blue Jays @ 16) and one was close (Tigers @ 14). While low pay doesn’t preclude one from being in the top of the majors, a high salary does appear to help keep you from the bottoms. 7 of the 10 highest paid teams were in the top 11 and all but 1 of the top top highest paid teams were in the 17.
The total unexpecteds are teams that are either at in the top ten rank and bottom ten in salary or visa versa. Turns out they’re not entirely unexpected: the Athletics were 21st in payroll but 5th in the majors. On the other side of things, the Cubs were 7th in payrol but 28th in the majors.
The most impressive performance, I must say is the Marlins who fielded a team on under $15 million and came in 20th overall. You can field a team on $15 million? That’s well less than half of the second to lowest paying team (the Devil Rays at $35 million).