Major League Baseball

Marlins, Rays, Rangers best value

Published Mar. 1, 2011 12:00 a.m. ET

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In the world of baseball, where there are no salary caps, the holy grail for most teams is getting the best value for their money. In the past three seasons, the Florida Marlins, Tampa Bay Rays and Texas Rangers have managed to do that better than their rivals, MarketWatch reported Tuesday.

The upshot for the Rangers and Rays has been one World Series appearance for each in the past three seasons. The Marlins won 251 games over the same period in arguably the National League’s toughest division.

Research by MarketWatch found that the Marlins, Rays and Rangers spent the least on each win above replacement from 2008 to 2010. Wins above replacement, known as WAR, is a key statistic that seeks to measure the all-around contributions of each player.

The research shows that teams with smaller payrolls appear to have an inherent advantage. “The [best-value teams] all do at least one thing well,” said Rob Neyer, baseball writer for SB Nation and a pioneer in the statistical study of the sport.

Many of the best-value teams enjoyed the benefits of years of high draft picks, which in theory means not only good players but also cheap players.

But not every team with consistently high draft picks and low payroll showed up well. The Kansas City Royals and Pittsburgh Pirates finished 16th and 20th, respectively, in MarketWatch’s rankings.

The two paths for small-market success, according to Neyer, involve either focusing on drafting and developing young players or trading older players for more prospects. The Marlins have (with the exception of star shortstop Hanley Ramirez) done well through development, while the Rays have managed to do both, Neyer said.

Another trait, Neyer added, is that the best-value teams do not spend a large chunk of their payroll on one player -- a quandary facing the St. Louis Cardinals, who had a $94 million payroll in 2010, but may have to pay up to $30 million a year to hold on to star first baseman Albert Pujols.

MarketWatch calculated best value by dividing total payroll expenditure -- based on data from USA Today -- by WAR. WAR numbers were taken from the baseball statistics site FanGraphs.com.

The small-market approach of the Rays and Marlins means success likely comes in cycles, as each new batch of youngsters takes time to bloom. The Rangers, however, may be poised for more sustained achievement.

“The Rangers aren’t a small-market team,” commented Neyer. “A few years ago, they had one of the highest payrolls in baseball, and it’s a market that can support a larger payroll.”

The club recently suffered financial troubles, filing for bankruptcy in May 2010 before being bought in the summer by a group led by former star pitcher Nolan Ryan. Its $55.25 million payroll last year was the fourth lowest in baseball and 19 percent lower than the team’s payroll in 2009.

Things are already looking up, with the new owners signing a 20-year, $3 billion television deal in September. The club’s payroll this year will be roughly $90 million, according to Cot’s Baseball Contracts.

The Rangers “had a small payroll [last season] because they saw they could win with it, but their fans will expect them to be able to win every year,” said Neyer.

One surprise among the top performers is the Toronto Blue Jays, a team whose closest run at a playoff berth in the past three years was finishing nine games out of the wild-card spot in 2008. But the club had the fifth-best total WAR over the period, and was the seventh-best-value team in baseball.

Sadly for the fans, the Jays suffer from being in the same division as baseball’s equivalent of Godzilla and Mothra -- the New York Yankees and Boston Red Sox.

“They haven’t gotten enough credit,” added Neyer. “[The Jays] would have been challenging for the playoffs if they played in the National League.”

Of course, winning cheap is not the only path to baseball success. The Yankees were the second-worst team in terms of value for money, but the Bronx Bombers also had the highest total WAR over the period and won the 2009 World Series.
 

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