The Value of Victory

There are a lot of ways to break down the success of a season, or lack thereof. You can look at playoff status, you can compare to the previous year or years, you can compare to your division or league. I am guessing while owners look at each of these factors, the overriding concern is the bottom line. I think it comes down to two questions: Did we make money or at worst, break even? And; Did we invest our money wisely into the product on the field? Given the invisibility of most of the information needed, the first answer can not be answered here. In a cursory way the second answer can addressed by comparing payroll to win production.

A few things to keep in mind, there is a demonstrated correlation between payroll and attendance as you will see. The Reds finished the year with the 10th highest attendance in the National League after starting the year with the 10th highest payroll. Not every team fits this perfectly into the mold, but it is predictive. The saddest example is the Tampa Bay Rays who began with the 31st highest payroll and finished 3oth in attendance in spite of making the playoffs on the last day of the season in arguably the toughest division.

To develop this table, I borrowed attendance figures from baseball-reference.com and salary information from CBSSports.com.

Team	2011 Payroll	Attendance	Wins	$/Win
New York Yankees	$201,689,030	3653680	97	$2,079,268.00
Philadelphia Phillies	$172,976,381	3680718	102	$1,695,846.00
Boston Red Sox	$161,407,476	3054001	90	$1,793,416.00
Los Angeles Angels	$138,998,524	3166321	86	$1,616,261.00
Chicago White Sox	$129,285,539	2001117	79	$1,636,525.00
Chicago Cubs	$125,480,664	3017966	71	$1,767,333.00
New York Mets	$120,147,310	2352596	77	$1,560,354.00
San Francisco Giants	$118,216,833	3387303	86	$1,374,614.00
Minnesota Twins	$112,737,000	3168116	63	$1,789,476.00
Detroit Tigers	$105,705,232	2642045	95	$1,112,686.00
St. Louis Cardinals	$105,433,572	3093954	90	$1,171,484.00
Los Angeles Dodgers	$103,788,990	2935139	82	$1,265,719.00
Texas Rangers	$92,299,265	2946949	96	$961,450.00
Colorado Rockies	$87,998,071	2909777	73	$1,205,453.00
Atlanta Braves	$87,003,192	2372940	89	$977,563.00
Seattle Mariners	$86,424,600	1939421	67	$1,289,919.00
Milwaukee Brewers	$85,497,333	3071373	96	$890,597.00
Baltimore Orioles	$85,304,038	1755461	69	$1,236,290.00
Cincinnati Reds	$76,181,365	2213588	79	$964,321.00
Houston Astros	$70,694,000	2067016	56	$1,262,392.00
Oakland Athletics	$66,536,500	1476791	74	$899,141.00
Washington Nationals	$63,681,929	1940478	80	$796,024.00
Toronto Blue Jays	$62,517,800	1818103	81	$771,824.00
Florida Marlins	$56,944,000	1477462	72	$790,888.00
Arizona Diamondbacks	$53,639,833	2105432	94	$570,636.00
Cleveland Indians	$49,188,867	1840835	80	$614,860.00
Pittsburgh Pirates	$46,047,000	1940429	72	$639,541.00
San Diego Padres	$45,869,140	2143018	71	$646,044.00
Tampa Bay Rays	$41,932,171	1529188	91	$460,793.00
Kansas City Royals	$36,126,400	1724450	71	$508,822.00

When you observe the NL Central standings from this perspective they change a bit.

Pittsburgh Pirates
Milwaukee Brewers
Cincinnati Reds
St. Louis Cardinals
Houston Astros
Chicago Cubs

This helps explain the need to find a new General Manager in Chicago when you realize they spent more per win than even the Phillies did in recording the third highest cost per win in all of baseball, trailing only the foolishness in the AL East between the Red Sox and the Yankees. John Fay estimated that the Reds will spend around $85 million next year but as you can see that may not even change their ranking on this chart as they would not pass a single team if none of them decrease their payrolls.

Another fascinating side note is the fact that 3 of the 8 playoff teams in 2011 actually dropped in attendance from 2010 to 2011. The Rays lost 335,814 in attendance this year while St. Louis lost 207,264 and the Yankees attendance dropped 112,127. this is in spite of the slight increase in attendance across the Majors of just 186 per game.

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