Playoff Odds vs. Spending Habits

The above chart groups franchises into groups of spending levels and looks at the playoff participation rates of each group.

The "High" is six teams (CHN, LAA, LAN, NYN, NYA, BOS). They got into this bucket by being in the top 25% of spending 60%+ of the time for years 2002-09 (latest 8 years). Teams like NYN, NYA and BOS were there every year, but some other teams would bounce in and out.

The "Medium" were below 60% but 25%+. 8 teams were in that group. "Low" was everyone else, especially my Padres.

The conclusion seems rather obvious to me. You can spend more, and do it consistently, you get to go to the playoffs. You are lucky enough to be a fan of the "High", you get to see your team in the playoffs once every other year (slightly more). Pretty exciting. You are in the mid group, it drops to about once every 5 years, or twice a decade. Hmmm, not quite as exciting. And if you're in the bottom group, it is once every six years, or twice in twelve years. Less exciting.

And, consider that the NY Mets are in the "High" group with one playoff appearance during 2002-09. As an aside, Omar should be canned ASAP. But, if you eliminated them from the high group, the playoff participation rate goes to 65%. And it would just leave BOS and NYA in the group being in the top 25% every year during the last 8 years. The playoff participation of that group of two is 81%.

Or another way to think about it is that if you are in the top group, you are 2.12x more likely to go to the playoffs than the mid group and 3.6x more likely than a team in the low group.

The answer to this is revenue sharing. Revenues need to be put into a common pool (while keeping profit incentive with the franchises) and let MLB and MLBPA duke it out over what % goes to players and what % stays with the teams. Some serious negotiations will have to occur between big and small market teams because the big market teams make more under the current system, but let them sort that out. This is roughly what the NFL does. This would eliminate market size as a variable of team success. Other variables will remain (FO talent, luck, etc) but at least this one outside of anyone's control will be eliminated.