Not Enough or Too Much Greed

The 1997 Florida Marlins

In our last episode we talked about teams that spend way too much money on player’s salaries like the New York Yankees who haven’t even been to the World Series since 2003 and haven’t won one since 2000. Now let’s take a look at the bottom feeders of Major League Baseball. We’ll use the Florida Marlins as our example for today. The Marlins won the World Series back in 1997, having a payroll right around 47.7 million dollars. This was 7th in spending for salaries that season, not bad considering they weren’t even the favorites that season to win it all, the Cleveland Indians were.

Marlins Owner Jeffrey Loria

However, the following season they dropped from spending that 47.7 million to spending just over 33 million, by the year 2000 not only were most of those players gone that helped win that World Series in 97 but the payroll had dropped to 19.8 million and they were 2^nd to last in the league in total player spending. However, in 2003 that all changed again when the Marlins jumped back up to over 48 million in salary and of course won the World Series that year. Now the Marlins are right at the bottom only putting in a measly $ 21,811,500 for their entire team and then only getting what they claim they could afford. They even let their fans know that they were going to not contend for a championship this year but yet kept ticket prices the same. The Yankees spent $209,081,577 this season and are the top spending team this year, the Marlins didn’t even spend a fourth of what the Yankees did. In this day and age with revenue sharing it is a wonder how teams still get away with claiming that they aren't making money, or would do this to hold their cities hostage for a new stadium.

The Evil Empire and Spending

I hate that teams not only do this, but that they are so greedy that they are willing to let their teams go into the toilet. They don't pay for the seats for us we pay them. In any case go watch baseball but do it from the comfort of your own home and stuff the owners for ruining our game. Why should we pay $80 for one seat that isn’t that close.

Colin Cowherd on the Yankees


If it weren't for guys like Alex Rodriguez who asked for over 200 million dollars for a contract of just 10 years of play then maybe owners wouldn't do this. Although players I think are expendable and until players and owners stop being greedy don't even buy the products featured by baseball either. In fact three of the top paid players are Yankees. Jason Giambi last year made $23,428,571, Rodriquez made $22,708,000, while Derek Jeter came in third with only a mere $21,600,000. Of course it's just a game, right?

Baseball Salaries Don't Help You Win

Highest Paid Player currently is Alex Rodriguez

Baseball has been America’s pastime since the 1800’s; however, it hasn’t been the game that we know as Major League Baseball with a World Series until 1903. Since that time the Yankees have won 26 World Series, while the St. Louis Cardinals are far behind in second place with 10. Rounding out the top teams are the Red Sox with seven World Series, and the Giants, Athletics, Pirates, Dodgers, and Reds with five a piece. However, with the advent of the Wild Card and the Divisional Series since 1995, it has expanded teams that wouldn’t have otherwise been in the playoffs. The way this works is that there is an actual wild card team who has the fourth best record in each League, those leagues being the American and National Leagues. Salaries are the main motivating factor to win championships, although, that doesn't seem to necessarily help especially if you spend the most.

George Steinbrenner

In 2007 for example the wild card teams were the Philadelphia Phillies and the New York Yankees; however, by their payrolls they should have done much better, especially the Yankees. The Yankees alone spent $189,639,045, which was the most in all of baseball last season; however, they were wild card losers.

Roger Clemens the "Pro" Rated Pitcher

Based on that scale, you would think that they would have had the best players and would have won it all. Not necessarily true. One thing that hurts this argument, though, is that the Red Sox won the World Series this same year by being second in baseball with a team salary of $143,026,214, still almost 46 million dollars less than the Yankees, but nonetheless a big spender.

Roger Clemens


I don’t think you need to be the biggest spenders to win it all. Take the 2006 season for my next example. The St. Louis Cardinals were the 11th highest spender in all of baseball at $88,891,371, but unlike the Yankees who again lost in the Divisional, they won the World Series. Seven out of the 10 teams who spent more than the Cardinals didn’t make the playoffs. So what does this say about the teams paying these players? They aren’t worth any of it if they don’t win! Individual numbers mean absolutely nothing if they continue to be this selfish and not allow their teams to save some money to get other players to help them. If this trend continues, other teams will not win.