Money talks.

[Jistic]

Because I'm bored and I want to give Funclown something to talk about I took a look at the top spending teams on player salary only since expansion in 1984. This is CUMULATIVE spending over the past 23 years. Here's what I found.

Top 8 spending teams since expansion.

Death Valley (cheater)
Baltimore
Washington
Dallas
Maine
Philly
Los Alamos
New Orleans

The total number of championships of the top 8 is 20. If you want to take away the cheater it's 13. Dallas and Philly are the only ones to have zero (it's a Texas thing)titles. Although Philly was a runner up in 1984.

The only exceptions to this were Windy City in 1986 (3rd lowest payroll), Cali in 1987 (13th highest), and last year's Batavia team of 2005 (lowest payroll in the league.)

Pawtucket as usual was a non factor in every part of this list.

[umd]

Because I'm bored and I want to give Funclown something to talk about I took a look at the top spending teams on player salary only since expansion in 1984. This is CUMULATIVE spending over the past 23 years. Here's what I found.

Top 8 spending teams since expansion.

Death Valley (cheater)
Baltimore
Washington
Dallas
Maine
Philly
Los Alamos
New Orleans

The total number of championships of the top 8 is 20. If you want to take away the cheater it's 13. Dallas and Philly are the only ones to have zero (it's a Texas thing)titles. Although Philly was a runner up in 1984.

The only exceptions to this were Windy City in 1986 (3rd lowest payroll), Cali in 1987 (13th highest), and last year's Batavia team of 2005 (lowest payroll in the league.)

Pawtucket as usual was a non factor in every part of this list.

Please change Death Valley to Virgina. Thanks.

[Jistic]

I thought Cheater would've given that away. There's still a few years of Death Valley data in there.

[Matt]

My owner must have been really happy in '05.

[umd]

I thought Cheater would've given that away. There's still a few years of Death Valley data in there.

I don't consider us anything Virginia or him anything DV. If we could I'd wipe him off the pages or separate him out I'd do it in a second.

[Carlos]

I'm not saying anything about money. I've said enough.


Sent from my mobile device.

[Delandis]

This is a bit misleading because I think, winning is really what talks. I'm not saying that there is no correlation, but many teams have had high budgets over the years but winning is just what maintains it at such levels that allow for these teams to continue to sign big FA's.

I can't really talk for any other team but what I feel is lost in this analysis is that we take a lot of chances on trades for PROVEN players that just so happen to come with big price tags. In Baltimore, we don't tend to hold on to those high draft picks nearly as tightly as most do so naturally, my payroll is usually higher. But at the same time, we win games. This in turn, keeps fans in the seats regularly even in "down" years so we just don't have the same magnitude of peaks and valleys of success and failure like other franchises. So we probably don't pose any real challenge to win championship as often as we could but, we don't bottom out as badly as others.

Take this year for example. Having 0 valuable draft picks but 70MM for FA was no accident. So its going to LOOK like all I do is spend money which couldn't be further from the truth.

Well, except for this year. The cupboard will be bare.

[Z]

To add to what Delandis said--which I agree with--there's a lot of correlation here but not nearly as much causation.

There are a lot of teams that tear everything down, spend $50 million in payroll for three or four years in a row, take a shot at a title for a couple years, don't win, and then repeat.

I've seen several organizations try it.

When you have a bunch of teams building this way, the teams who are spending money to give themselves a chance to win every year are going to have more opportunities.

[funclown]

Interesting note the past champions:

Maine- on the fly
Batavia- rebuild
Wash- on the fly
Baltimore- on the fly
Virginia- cheated
New Orleans- on the fly

So obviously based on this, keeping yourself competitive works. Also makes sense why the payroll stays high. The more you win, the more they want. Pawtucket did a small retool/ rebuild in the late 90's and it almost worked. Unfortunately it wasn't built for the long term and can see the weight of the payroll starting to take its toll. Trying something a little more lasting. Plus I like shifting gears. I get enough routine in the real world.

Not like we haven't thrown our hat in the ring past 17 + seasons, just hasn't worked out.

Thats why I like this league so much. Even the teams stated above have certain "tweaks" to the way they build on the fly.

[Delandis]

And I just thought about the contracts that the top 3 pitchers in the IL have.

Mejia:7.8 MM
Herboholtz:16M (was ~8/9MM before the resign)

and then there's that ridiculous 7 year, 1.4MM per contract for Neal. The best hitter in the IL makes 6MM/per in his prime while Fujii was at 27MM because of FA. Realistically those guys alone should be commanding AT LEAST 15MM per at this point in their careers. When you have 60MM-80MM in talent for approximately 30MM, yes your payroll will continue to look awesome.

[umd]

And I just thought about the contracts that the top 3 pitchers in the IL have.

Mejia:7.8 MM
Herboholtz:16M (was ~8/9MM before the resign)

and then there's that ridiculous 7 year, 1.4MM per contract for Neal. The best hitter in the IL makes 6MM/per in his prime while Fujii is at 27MM because of FA. Realistically those guys alone should be commanding AT LEAST 15MM per at this point in their careers. When you have 60MM-80MM in talent for approximately 30MM, yes your payroll will continue to look awesome.

That's the imbalance of the loophole that we never really addressed. We just let those garbage contracts ride and then handicapped everyone after. With a few teams players gaining a huge advantage.

[Delandis]

That's the imbalance of the loophole that we never really addressed. We just let those garbage contracts ride and then handicapped everyone after.

I know, but I couldn't produce a more fair way to address it other than to let the contracts run their course.

[umd]

I know, but I couldn't produce a fair way to address it other than to let the contracts run their course.

I know, there was no "fair" solution for anyone. But it definitely created a benefit to certain teams financially that has been ignored.

[funclown]

I know, there was no "fair" solution for anyone. But it definitely created a benefit to certain teams financially that has been ignored.

It did, but so far its resulted in zero Brewmaster cups.

We got the arb rule in place now. Most of these contracts will be gone in a few years.

[Jake]

We are big spenders in Syracuse now... not sure how we got here, but here we are.