Wednesday, January 27, 2010

No one can "buy" a World Series

Ask a simple question, get an annoying answer:

Why are so many people saying the Yankees bought the World Series "yankees buy world series" gets 11,600,000 Google results) ? Just about any story on the 2009 season heavily features this mindless assertion. Since the Bombers have the highest payroll pretty much every year, but hadn't won the big enchilada since 2000, to say they can simply buy anything is a little silly.

In fact, the correlation between payroll and winning isn't nearly as strong as you might think. Yes, the no.1 payroll team, the Yanks, at $201.4 million, won the World Series. But several of the top ten payroll teams missed the playoffs entirely, including the second ranked Mets ($149.4 mill.), the third ranked Cubs ($134.8 mill.), no. 5 Detroit ( $115.1), no. 9 Seattle ($ 98.9), and no. 10 Atlanta ($ 96.7).
 
 
This was originally posted on my other blog, Rene's Apple, on Nov. 25 of last year.
 
Payroll info from the Biz of Baseball.

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