Three words: Return on Investment.

Mike Lupica is stupid:

"There is only one team, still, in baseball history that spent more than $200 million on baseball players and actually won the Series. That was the 2009 New York Yankees. Their payroll that year was around $210 million. They have spent more than $200 million a year for every year since that (the way they did for the five years before that), and haven’t won since."

This is very difficult to explain to stupid people, but this does not prove that spending a lot of money hurts a team's chances of winning the World Series.

Only one team can win the World Series every year, understand?

Another way to look at this test: In the 11 years under discussion, the Yankees won the World Series 1 out of 11 tries. The other 29 teams combined won the World Series 10 times out of 319 tries.

Who has a better World Series winning percentage? The Yankees or the Not Yankees?


Even the conclusion is off: "The Yankees haven't won since."

The Yankees have not been under .500 in 20 years. The Yankees draw 3 million fans every year. I know the marketing spiel, but if you really think Hank and Hal expect to win the World Series every year, then you are stupid.

The product has slipped quite a bit, but the brand is incredibly strong and people therefore keep buying the product.

How did the brand gain so much strength? It certainly wasn't because the Yankees signed a lot of inexpensive players.


"The closest thing to a dynasty in baseball over the past several years are the San Francisco Giants, who have won three World Series in the last six seasons. The most money they spent in any of those years was when they were a little over $150 million. The Mets aren’t there now that Yoenis Cespedes is coming back, but they’re close enough. And maybe the people in charge aren’t the dumbest and cheapest in the world after all."

$150 million isn't chump change, but I think we can all agree that the baseball GM discussion has become overwhelming and tiring. Maybe the contract sizes should be secret and we can all just try to enjoy the game on the field.


"And the team that beat them in the World Series in a five-game series that looked and felt and even sounded a lot closer than that, the Royals, a team that has a batting order that is like barbed wire and enough pitching and plays a beautiful game of baseball, they were at $110 million in 2015 when they won their first World Series in three decades."

Right.

Don't ignore the last sentence ... "first World Series in three decades."

I wonder if Lupica understands that this hurts his small-payroll argument or if he's just ignoring all the conflicting data.


"Here is what Tyler Kepner, the fine baseball columnist for the Times, wrote on Saturday:

'Can Mets fans finally trust that the stewards of their team might know a bit about how to run a franchise?' "

I have nothing to add to this observation, but I think it's the first time I have ever seen Mike Lupica credit another person. It's usually "people are saying" or "lots of people" or "some people" or he just makes stuff up.

Can it be that Mike Lupica has suddenly adopted first-class journalistic techniques?


"The great myth of modern baseball, despite all the evidence, is that there’s only one way to win the World Series lottery, and that is by spending an insane amount of money. It doesn’t work that way anymore. An amazing thing has now happened with the Mets: Six months later, Sandy Alderson surprises you again with Yoenis Cespedes. Amazin’."

That's more like it! Garbage journalistic techniques. The "great myth" that isn't a great myth at all.

The bottom ten in payroll in 2015? Guess what? Only one of them even made the playoffs. That was the Pirates at $85 million ... and that's with ten freaking teams making the playoffs.


I actually agree that the Mets played this nicely. It's essentially a one-year mega-contract that will avoid the long-term commitments that quickly lose their value as the players age without help from PEDs.

But it's oddly important for Lupica to act like the Mets are still a small payroll team ... $27.5 million for one player for one year isn't something a small payroll team can do ... and it's even odder that it's important for Lupica to try to make a case that a small payroll teams are outperforming high payroll teams. They aren't.