Cheap? Who You Callin’ Cheap?
Mon, Mar 5, 2007
by Geoff Young
Want to hear a dirty little secret about the Padres’ recent spending habits? Guess how many teams have increased their payroll every year since 2001.
Two. The Houston Astros and our Padres.
Not that more cash is always the answer — the Twins have won nine fewer games over the past 6 years than the Boston Red Sox and have spent less than half as much money in the process. Still, it’s nice (and maybe a little surprising) to discover that the Padres aren’t as cheap as we might have thought.
For grins, here’s the NL West over that same period:
Just something to remember the next time your buddy complains that the Padres don’t spend enough money. 
Picking up where last year's version left off, the Ducksnorts 2008 Baseball Annual provides in-depth analysis of and commentary on the San Diego Padres. Get your copy today.
March 5, 2007 at 8:17 am
Good post G.Y. but it shows how spending more money does help, since the padres started to spend more money they have turned from a joke to back to back defending NL west tittles.
March 5, 2007 at 9:47 am
I think spending wisely is the key. The Padres could blow a lot of money on medium name free agents and get, well, not much, in return.
I also think there is point of diminishing returns on spending. It seems like somewhere around the $75M to $95M is the sweet spot. Not too much, but enough to get the bat/arm that is need to get you over the hump.
March 5, 2007 at 9:52 am
I did some analysis on salary and winning percentage (I had trouble finding another analysis, would love to see a link to one). Anyway, if you simply plot win pct vs. salary for each year, the r-squared is low (.18). If you average a team’s salary over groups of years, you see a stronger correlation, explaining 30-45% of variation in winning percentage. Salary matters, but as others have said, so do smarts and luck.
http://www.sports-analysis.net.....age34.html
(Not the savviest of sites)
March 5, 2007 at 9:54 am
BTW, my comment is based on what I perceive, not on any real hard data. It would be interesting to see what the WS winner has spent for the last 10 years, not only in raw dollars, but in comparison to MLB, their league and their division.
From GY’s data the Pad’s are in firmly in the middle in our division for this year.
March 5, 2007 at 9:57 am
Jay, winning percentage is nice. Typically when it is up there, you have post-season success, but winning it all is all that really matters to the fans. Of course it may different for some owners, (and shame on them if it is).
Thats why for me I would look only at WS winners.
March 5, 2007 at 10:18 am
5: The problem with that is that everything changes after the regular season. There’s just too much randomness within the playoffs to correlate winning the WS with success. If the Cardinals had lost one more game this year, they’re in a playoff to even go to the playoffs. Lose that and they’re at home watching us against the Astros. The Tigers ran over the Yankees and A’s in the tougher league and then look like tee ballers against the Cards.
You could give a team more points for going deeper in the playoffs, but that’s exactly the time when individual player performances, which are less related to salary, have the most impact.
March 5, 2007 at 11:26 am
But Tom, you really made my point for me. I believe that the teams that win the WS have that little something extra that, perhaps, money can’t buy and the regular season win-loss ratio doesn’t really show either. I am confident that top-tier, high-salary teams will generally have high winning %’s and will be in the post season most every year, but they seldom win it. Winning the WS is IT, not just getting there. I don’t want to get there again without winning it.
Don’t get me wrong, I am stoked the Pad’s won the west again, but it isn’t good enough. My point is that high winning % doesn’t necessarily mean winning the WS.
I know there is randomness in the post season, but I believe the teams that win it all win it for a reason.
I am just curious what the salaries of those teams are and where their salaries fit into the rest of the league, thats all.
Whew!
March 5, 2007 at 11:50 am
Re: 4 I posted that anaysis a while ago but I dont rember which thread it was in.
March 5, 2007 at 11:55 am
7: If IT is indefinable, then how can you blame a team for not having IT? We traded our best position prospect for David Wells last year because we thought he had IT.
What the WS winner usually has, that the loser doesn’t, is luck and fluke performances. If you say that money can’t account for that, which I agree with, then there’s no point in measuring a team’s payroll against WS wins. You can’t claim that payroll can’t capture what makes a team win the WS and then turn around and criticize a study for not using WS wins as the criteria.
March 5, 2007 at 12:11 pm
Re: 7 & 9
I cant find the analysis that I posted but from what I remember the world series winners payroll rankings varied quite a bit but the team who finished with the most wins was consistently in the top 5 each year
One other note I found was that the padres have not had a higher payroll that the world series winner since major F/A started (94 Strike).
March 5, 2007 at 12:26 pm
I found the analysis i was talking about:
World series winners payroll ranks (see comment 61):
http://ducksnorts.com/blog/200.....l#comments
Regular season champs payroll ranks(see comment 65)
http://ducksnorts.com/blog/200.....l#comments
March 5, 2007 at 12:51 pm
Interesting interview with Bob Tewksbury … http://www.baseballprospectus......cleid=5931 … he’s now “A sport psychology coach in the Red Sox organization”.
March 5, 2007 at 2:40 pm
Tom, not sure what you mean by IT as being undefined. When I say IT, I meant winning the WS. That is very defined. Sorry if I mis-led. I don’t pretend to be a statistical expert by any stretch of the imagination.
My only desire is to look at what the salaries were of the WS winners for the last 10 years and compare those salaries with the other teams in the winner’s division, league and MLB. I think you will not see that much of a correlation between the $ spent equating to a WS championship. I agree spending high $ usually means high win %, but that doesn’t always mean a WS championship (which IMHO is the ultimate goal, not to be statistically on or near the top in win %).
Would I like the Pad’s to have a high win/loss ratio? Of course! It would mean it is more likely (but not guaranteed) they will be in the post season, which means more of a chance (but not guaranteed) to win IT all (the WS).
That being said, I would rather the Padres win the WS with only 81 regular season victories than win 105 games during the regular season and get blown out in the NLDS or the NLCS.
I’m done.
March 5, 2007 at 2:44 pm
Steve, thanks for the links to your past research. Kind of what I was looking for, but with the actual numbers as well as rankings and percent above/below average.
I may just go and dig it up myself. I think Baseball Almanac might have all that stuff.
March 5, 2007 at 2:49 pm
the numbers kind of become irrelevant because of time and inflation, I think the top payroll in 92 was like $40 mil which is 5 times less than the Yankees payroll today.
March 5, 2007 at 5:39 pm
13: It = “have that little something extra that, perhaps, money can’t buy and the regular season win-loss ratio doesn’t really show either.”
The Padres win 81 games, almost every time they’re in no position to win the WS. Spending in the top half, year-to-year, is almost essential to getting to the playoffs. Within the playoffs its open season, but if you have to spend to get there, you can’t ignore the importance of spending in the first place.
The last 10 seasons, only the 2003 Marlins were outside the top half. Most WS winners were in the top 3rd of payroll. It would be skewed even higher towards the big payroll teams if Mariano Rivera, who was IT for several years, gets a couple more outs in 2001 against Arizona.
March 5, 2007 at 6:46 pm
Sorry to say, but 2007 looks like they broke that increasing payroll streak,Geoff. The reported payroll is barely over $60MM, a 12% drop, this year. I guess that’s what all the complaints are about.
March 5, 2007 at 7:16 pm
17 - 2007 ain’t over yet … just sayin’ there’s a possibility they make a mid-season trade that costs ‘em some payroll (and hopefully “puts ‘em over the top) …
March 5, 2007 at 7:29 pm
mlb.com has some video highlights up already … http://sandiego.padres.mlb.com.....mp;c_id=sd … ahhh …
March 5, 2007 at 9:08 pm
17 & 18: I think it’s possible the reduction for 2007 is necessary to assist with signing all those extra draft picks we stockpiled, and I’m OK with that. It’s also possible LM is right and we are saving some room for an acquisition during the year. I’m OK with that, too. Either way, reduction or no, it is a strategy, imo, to help set the team up to win, which is what it is all about.
Winning and playing competitive, quality baseball year in and year out should be the goal. Winning the WS is gravy, icing on the cake and, as TW points out, in many ways a crap shoot. I really don’t understand the “winning it all is all that matters” mentality. Of course it is the ultimate achievement and the most gratifying for both player and fan, but for the vast majority of teams, given the economic conditions in baseball, it will be a very rare occurence.
This being the case I’m very happy to be a fan of the Padres who are in the midst of a golden age in franchise history and appear to be well set up to continue their run of playing quality, competitive, winning baseball for the foreseeable future.
March 5, 2007 at 9:35 pm
Re: payroll…what TW said. Selig & his suits like to play up the fact that 2000-2006 has seen 7 different WS series winners, and talk about having evened the playing field via revenue sharing. Horsepoop! You can’t win the WS without making the playoffs, and I’m willing to bet there is a very statistically significant correlation between team payroll and making the playoffs over those 7 years. Once you make the dance, it is largely, as Pat puts it, a crapshoot, and with only 7 data points, it isn’t much surprise that you can’t find much correlation between payroll and WS winners.
March 5, 2007 at 10:34 pm
‘Cause I just can’t throw something out there without some evidence to back it up… over the period, 2000-2006…
teams in top 10 in payroll claimed 56% of playoff spots,
middle 10 claimed 32%,
bottom 10 claimed 14%.
For that same period, the median team payroll of playoff teams was 26% higher than the median team payroll of all teams. If you compared the median of playoff teams to non-playoff teams, the difference would be greater, something over 30% easily. If you went by payroll average instead of median, the difference (thanks to that mighty outlier in the Bronx) would be still greater.
No one argues that money is the be all and end all of team success, but teams that don’t spend, only rarely contend. Spend a few million more to increase your chances? As they say in New York, “It wouldn’t hoit.”
March 5, 2007 at 10:39 pm
Ooops, make that 54% for top 10.
March 6, 2007 at 3:36 am
I think we should inquire about Hector Luna…the Indians seem to be upset with him and I think he’d make a great and versitile IF backup.
March 6, 2007 at 8:32 am
24 - if he can’t play SS, it doesn’t seem like we need him … our BIGGEST hole is backup-SS … Blum seems “replacement level” at best … I’m happy with Walker as backup 2B-3B-1B …
March 6, 2007 at 9:00 am
25: Yeah. Walker and Robles are adequate backups everywhere but SS. If you could just combine Walker’s offensive skill with Blum’s “ability” to play SS, you’d have a fine backup infielder and we wouldn’t use up so many roster spots.
March 6, 2007 at 9:18 am
20: The draft budget should be completely separate from the major league payroll. When you draft and sign a player you control him for a long time. The theoretical maximum is 12 years, but most players have no chance to leave the drafting club for 8-9. It’s an investment.
2006 draft bonuses:
Padres - 4.7 million
Red Sox - 8.4 million
3.7 million dollars was the difference between a great draft and an okay draft. Both gaps narrow if we sign Latos. We’re not talking about huge money in major league baseball terms. More than I’ll ever make, but it’s a small % of revenues.
I think the Padres didn’t spend this winter because they didn’t find think anyone was worth it, besides those they signed. I don’t agree with that, Schmidt was worth it, but I don’t believe they were saving money for the draft. Sure hope not.
March 7, 2007 at 3:33 am
Luna does play a capable SS as well as OF.