Monday, March 2, 2009

Payroll Efficiency and Suicide Invoices

Plenty of All?  None for MePositivity and happiness are a fleeting whorish mistress. No sooner was I basking in the glory of Cabrera stealing someone else's money, keeping my summer unruined and Cecil's good outing, the next I was considering slitting my wrists. The geniuses at Baseball Analysts examined payroll data for the past three years against each team's average wins in the same time frame. Exciting news! The Jays 85.33 wins is the eighth best total in all of baseball, while their average salary sits right in the middle at 15th in baseball. Not a bad relationship, one might think.

As the piece rolls on, so do the cringe-worthy Blue Jays mentions. All stuff we all know, moral victory type shit that generally points to JP doing a reasonable job and the task at hand being daunting as fuck. A sampling, from the post and an excellent comment:
Six clubs have averaged more than 81 wins with payrolls under the league mean of $89.86M. The best of the best was Minnesota (winner of the "doing the most with the least" award), followed by Cleveland, Toronto, Arizona, Milwaukee, and Oakland. All but the Blue Jays made the playoffs once, which probably says as much about Toronto's competition as anything else.

(comment) I'd argue that almost every team in baseball has an innate advantage every year over the Blue Jays, so they need an handicap.
The Jays do as good as job of spending their money wisely as any team in baseball, with nothing to show for it. The Red Sox and their massive payroll are credited by Lederer and gang as the most efficient team in baseball by virtue of their huge payroll and division they call home. The Rays, who's success last year shouldn't obscure their true crappiness for the better part of a decade, are below the regression line too, indicating the shrewdness that should cause you to hate baseball owners for being the autocratic pricks they are.

Great. The Jays are in with the two biggest spenders, one of which spends money better than any other team in baseball. And you wonder why I pine for the simple pleasures of Scott Rolen's defense every day. IS THAT TOO MUCH TO ASK????

2 comments:

  1. Self-pity is like a placebo. It works for a while, but at some point you realize you've been taking a pill that doesn't do shit and you just get angry and depressed. And now we're in an ACTUAL WORLDWIDE DEPRESSION.

    I'm like you Lloyd. I'll watch Blue Jays baseball this season for the more simple pleasures. Rolen's ropes. Watching the greatest pitcher in baseball. The Sniders and Cecils developing. And other lame shit like that. Hopefully it'll get me through another season.

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  2. Good call. Give me the soft focus Ken Burns shit and I'll be fine.

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