Adam Felder of The Atlantic, disputes the theory that major league baseball has entered an age of parity and some would have you believe. Rather, the gap between rich teams and poor teams has widened.
To back up his claim, Felder points out that since in the last 25 years since 1990, only two teams in the lower third of MLB payroll has won a World Series (1990 Reds, 2003 Marlins), compared to 15 World Series Championships for teams with a top third MLB payroll.
Felder also graphs the regular season winning percentages of top and bottom third payroll teams over the last 25 years as further evidence that there is no parity and to illustrate just how difficult it is for a bottom payroll team to be good.
“Simply put, only good teams tend to make the playoffs, and it’s very difficult for a low-payroll team to be good. While it’s true that money doesn’t buy championship rings, money does at least get your team into the jewelry store.”
The Mets have a payroll around $83 million and general manager Sandy Alderson believes that number will rise this offseason. However when pressed he admitted that it was too early to know for sure and that he has yet to be given a budget for 2015.
Thoughts from Joe D.
The problem for the Mets is that while they try and rebuild and contend through the farm, the Marlins, Braves and Nationals are doing the same exact thing. Unlike the Mets, those three division rivals also have the money to spend in addition to having several young top-tier talents already in the majors.
In short. most teams have evolved and understand the importance of developing and maintaining a pipeline of top prospects to feed the major league squad, and the Mets are not doing anything unique.
So in the end the difference between winning and losing may come down to having the financial resources to keep the stars you develop, and filling in the gaps with quality free agents, both of which require money the Mets don’t seem to have.
The biggest consequence for a bottom third payroll team is having too much of the payroll concentrated on underperforming players – or in other words – negative impact dollars.
The one hope that Felder says teams like the Mets could hang their hats on is luck. There’s always one lucky team like the Pittsburgh Pirates who can overcome the lack of spending in a particular season where everything seems to break right for them.
I still can’t believe we have to discuss this issue while playing in the sports mecca of the world. But these are troubling times in the kingdom.
