Buying Success in Major League Baseball

Poster

2009

With the World Series victory of the New York Yankees in 2009, the most frequent comment (against the Yankees) was that they “bought another one.” This raises the question of “can you really buy a championship?” and if not, how well can you do?

I created this chart which follows the winnings & payrolls of all 30 teams across the 2008 & 2009 seasons to see if it really is possible to buy success. The result is that, while the teams who spent more tended to do better, it still does not guarantee a play-off spot and especially not a World Series title.

*I’m a Phillies fan and the Yankees bought success regardless of the data … but I don’t know how.