Highest Spending Baseball Teams Could Miss Playoffs, Including Yankees

As the Beatles wrote, ?money can?t buy me love? and major-league baseball teams are finding out yet again in 2012 that high payrolls do not necessarily translate into winning.

Of the teams with the top seven 2012 payrolls, it?s possible that six will not make the playoffs. Only the Texas Rangers, losers of the last two World Series, are assured of qualifying. Even the biggest spenders, the New York Yankees, who were seemingly a lock when they held a 10-game lead in the AL East on July 18, are now in danger of missing the playoffs if they don?t straighten out their lethargic play since the All-Star break.

The Yanks are now tied with the surprising Baltimore Orioles for first place with 27 games to play. The Philadelphia Phillies, Boston Red Sox and Miami Marlins are virtually eliminated and the Los Angeles Angels are in trouble. The Detroit Tigers trail the Chicago White Sox by one game in the AL Central.

The Yanks? payroll of $197 million is more than the Orioles ($81 million) and the Tampa Bay Rays ($64 million) combined. The Orioles rank 19th in payroll while the Rays are 25th. What?s even more remarkable is the performance of the Oakland Athletics, who have the same record as the Yanks and O?s despite being next-to-last in payroll at $55 million. Three other teams (Washington, Atlanta and Cincinnati), which are not in the top half of the league?s payroll, figure to make the playoffs.

If the Yanks do not make the playoffs, their plan to reduce their payroll to get under the $189 million luxury-tax threshold by 2014 will be put to the test. Just four players (Alex Rodriguez, C.C. Sabathia, Mark Teixiera, and Derek Jeter) will account for $82 million in 2014 and Robinson Cano and Curtis Granderson will have to be signed to lucrative deals by then also, likely bringing the payroll up to around $115 million.

The question will be can the Yanks reduce payroll if they fail to make the playoffs? Maybe they can take a page out of the Orioles? and Rays? playbooks and try to win with lower-salaried players. But don?t bet on that happening.

Source: http://www.forbes.com/sites/davidlariviere/2012/09/05/highest-spending-baseball-teams-could-miss-playoffs-including-yankees/

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