We might be living in an age of budget cuts in the UK, but Major League Baseball is successfully braving the global economic storm in the States.

Midway through December it was revealed that the average MLB salary had exceeded $3m for the first time in 2010 ($3,014,572, equivalent to £37,425 per week) and just before Christmas details of the final 2010 payrolls were disclosed by the Associated Press.

Typically the figures used to describe a team’s expenditure relate to their opening day payroll, but the final payrolls give a more accurate picture of what a team spent on their playing staff throughout the season.

Everyone clicking the above link would expect to see the New York Yankees at the top of the money tree and, sure enough, that’s exactly where they are with a total of $215,053,064. Their bitter rivals the Boston Red Sox came in second with a relatively modest total of $170,650,856. It’s striking that the difference between those top two, $44,402,208, is more than the sum spent by both the San Diego Padres and Pittsburgh Pirates at the bottom of the spending pile.

Those of us who like to believe that money isn’t the be all and end all can take comfort in the positive year had by the Padres (the Pirates are a lost cause at the moment, but that’s a consequence of a long period of terrible leadership rather than simply a money matter). The level of competition in the National League West doesn’t match that of the AL East, but that doesn’t diminish San Diego’s 90-72 season, in which they narrowly missed out on a playoff spot. No one bettered the Padres when it came to wins per dollars spent ($485,046 per win).

In contrast, the Yankees’ wins cost them $2,263,716 apiece. That’s a cost they can afford thanks to their gleaming new ballpark and lucrative TV network, which both service the biggest sports market in the States. The Red Sox and Yankees effectively force each other to raise the financial stakes and Boston’s free agent-signing exploits this offseason are the latest development in this compelling trend.

That makes the Tampa Bay Rays’ AL East triumph all the more astounding. They had to compete against by far the two biggest spenders, and also a surprisingly competitive Toronto Blue Jays team, with a final payroll that ranked twentieth in the Majors ($77,510,502). To put it another way, the Rays were working with a budget only 45 per cent the size of the Red Sox’s and 36 per cent the size of the Yankees’.

And yet they beat them both.  Continue reading →