The payroll thing, and free agents

Let's see how MLB teams are doing relative to their payrolls, using standard sources. (The Dodgers are somewhat misleading as they have Ohtani making only $2M.)

Eight of the fifteen teams with the biggest payrolls have winning records. That's four of the top five, then four of the next ten. So 53% overall, and 40% not in the top five.

Then six of the other fifteen, lower payroll teams have winning records. Also 40%.

(There's one team in each group that is right at .500.)

https://www.spotrac.com/mlb/payroll/_/year/2024/sort/cap_total2

(Here's another way to slice these that account differently and shows the real Ohtani cost: https://www.fangraphs.com/roster-resource/breakdowns/payroll but it's otherwise very similar ranking.)

So your chance of having a winning record if you're not in the top five payrolls is about 40%, whether your payroll is higher or lower. It's a bit better if you are not right at the bottom, though the Pirates and Rays are not doing that badly, and the Guardians and Orioles are very thrifty.

There are four division leaders in the lower-payroll group (Guardians, Orioles, Mariners and Brewers), including three in the bottom ten for payroll, and two in the bigger payroll group (Dodgers and Phillies.) That's subject to small changes depending what the Yankees and Orioles do on any given day.

There are six teams from each group currently in line to make the playoffs. The AL teams are primarily lower payroll, the NL primarily higher payroll. While that could change a bit, it also might not.

So if you own a baseball team, you probably think long and hard about whether you want to run a big payroll. (Unless you're in New York or LA, where you just do it anyway.) You have to commit to about 1.5X average payroll to gain reliable advantage. The Tigers used to do this, annoying the other AL central teams. Spending another $50M might not have much effect on a team in the middle of the payroll rankings. Ask the Cubs, Blue Jays or Giants.

It's also not the case that the best players are the most expensive, or signed as free agents. Here are the top 30 position players by fWAR:

https://www.fangraphs.com/leaders/major-league?qual=200

Half of these guys including four of the top ten are a) with the team that they broke in with and b) are or would be under team control (though some signed extensions.)

For pitchers it's much the same thing, though more guys changed teams:

https://www.fangraphs.com/leaders/major-league?month=0&pos=all&stats=pit&type=8&qual=60

So while there's some sentiment that the Tigers can't compete unless and until they spend big in free agency, that's not what we see from how other teams achieved success. Sometimes spending works, often times it doesn't. (I realize that as fans, it's not our money, and it's one thing that can be done to try to make an immediate difference if we are skeptical of our current talent. We just need to be realistic about whether it works, looking at Baez and Maeda.)

It does highlight the advantage of getting exceptional performance from team control players. You win by finding more guys like Skubal and Greene.