Chum Bucket

was on espn…

Perhaps, though, the most efficient team in baseball last year was the Rays, with their $43.8 million opening-day player payroll, lowest in the AL, their 97 wins, and a World Series appearance. (The Marlins were even more efficient than the Rays, posting a .522 winning percentage with a payroll of just under $22 million, but this was more a fluke event than an item for future study.)

—Steven Goldman, BP

It becomes even more disparaging when you look at the accompanying data, whereby “efficiency” is defined as Marginal Dollars divided by Marginal Wins. By such a measure, the lower you are, the better. And it is here that one sees that these most-efficient Rays, at $679,231, are the only team under a million per marginal win — except for the Marlins who come in at less than half that with $302,845. An outlier, to be sure, but no further from 2nd (Tampa) than Tampa is from 3rd (Minnesota, FYI).

I wouldn’t have a problem with calling the Rays something like “the most successfully efficient” team, as there can certainly be some debate over whether there is much to be by being, say, the best team to miss the playoffs and the worst in baseball, whereas the revenue from simply making the playoffs, even if you’re swept in the opening round, makes it demonstrably better than being the best team to miss. But if you’re measuring all 30 teams and defining efficiency by M$/MW, it seems a bit out of hand to then dismiss one result as a “fluke” when it doesn’t jibe with the desired results or accompanying analysis.

if you don’t have the network, and are not getting to see the dominican vs netherlands game right now… you are getting robbed. It’s been a great game again.