How Much Does a Win Cost?

It is always interesting to see the correlation between payroll and wins to see which teams are getting the most for their money and which teams are clearly not getting much out of their enormous investment. Predictably, the Yankees are sitting at the top as they are every year paying the most money per win. With 38 wins so far, the Yankees have paid $5,122,712.61 per win. They are $1,625,508.94 in front of the Cubs who are paying the second most per win and the Yankees could have 55 wins and would still be paying more money per win than the Cubs.

Out of the top five teams in dollars/win, three are in last place and they are teams that people did not quite expect to be underperforming as much as they have. The Cubs are paying the 2nd most per win, the Angels are paying the third most per win, and the Braves are paying the fifth most per win. All three teams were expected to be in the fray for their respective playoff hunts, but due to some injuries and generally suckiness, they are severly underperforming.

The teams getting the most bang for their buck are the Milwaukee Brewers at $1,644,809.51, the Oakland Athletics at $1,637,975.76, the Cincinnati Reads at $1,602,882.08, the Tampa Bay Devil Rays at $1,221,309.21, the Colorado Rockies at $1,178,085.71, and the Florida Marlins at $517,189.66. As bad as the Marlins were earlier in the year, they are not in last place and have ripped off eight wins in a row and have a lot of very young players playing very well. You can criticize their front office all you want, but they seem to be onto something and they would not surprise anyone that much be being in contention in two years. What they are doing with a $14,998,500 payroll is extremely impressive. They are not pushovers by any means.

While this is far from scientific, the MLB average at this point for dollars/win is $2,168,412,57. So by that number, a team getting the right amount of production for their dollar should be in that area. The five closest teams to the average dollar/win are the New York Mets at $120,030.07 over, the Chicago White Sox at $104,459.41 over, the Baltimore Orioles at $37,516.42 over, the St. Louis Cardinals at $114,321.81 under, and the Washington Nationals at $257,564.27 under.

Out of all the first place teams, the Oakland A's, the Texas Rangers ($1,795,491.11), and the Detroit Tigers ($1,795,931.87) should be commended for the teams they have put together in regards to the value they are getting from them. It is no surprise that Billy Beane is one of the tops in the league in terms of assembling a team that is producing with limited payroll and is on track for yet another very good season. However, Dave Dombrowski deserves a lot of credit for what he did in Detroit. He made some highly criticized moves in bringing in Magglio Ordonez and Ivan Rodriguez, but they did not end up bad at all at this point and that goes especially for Magglio. As for Texas, John Hart actually recovered nicely from his A-Rod and Chan Ho Park debacles and Jon Daniels picked up where he left off.

As far as the Mets go, they are 13th overall with $2,350,813.09 per win, which is very reasonable. We have heard comments pertaining to the Mets not being scrutinized for buying a winning team like the Yankees while they should be by numerous people, but I think we all know that Omar has been fiscally responsible while assembling the best team in New York. To put in perspective, the Yankees could have won every single game they played this year and still would have paid more per win than the Mets. The Mets spendthrifts? Not anymore. Minaya in tandem with Wilpon & Co. had the wherewithal to not spend irresponsibly like past Mets teams have done and put a winning product that is set up for huge things in the future while maintaining payroll flexibility.

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Alright...Jon Donovan, I take back calling your a douchebag. It seems that I got caught up in nothing.

A weekend stumble against the lowly Orioles could have cost the Mets, at least here in the PRs. But with a 9 1/2-game lead in the division, one of the best lineups in the NL, a 40-year-old lefty with 10 wins who is heading for the All-Star Game and a new superstar in third baseman David Wright, who can knock on the Mets these days?

With the Mets #2 in the rankings and some nice words about the New York Metropolitans, you are off my shit list which you were wrongly put on. Furthermore, you gain some points for putting the Braves in the 26th spot.

Bronson Arroyo is for real. He looked sharp yesterday and put the ball wherever he wanted it. The Mets looked flat offensively again, but you have to give credit to Arroyo for pitching a great game. The Duque looked great for the Mets too and was a borderline pitch away from not giving a homerun up Ken Griffey Jr. Orlando probably hit just about every MPH between 60 and 90 and got Felipe Lopez out on a curveball that he thought was 50 MPH. It was a clinic last night between both starters of how to succeed without a dominant fastball.

The Reds are a solid team, but very beatable one. Their bullpen is bad and they have a lot of holes in their lineup. Three of four is what I would have expected from the Mets this series, but they are already one game in the hole and struggling a bit. Two games would be a win for the Mets at this point before they take off on an important road trip to the AL East beasts.

Eli Gelman has some Mets minor league action in his article. Evan MacLane's goal for this season is to win fifteen games and make it to the bigs as a September call-up.

"Win 15 games and be a September call-up," MacLane said without hesitation. "When September rolls around, I want (the Mets) to have to make a decision. I want to be good enough in their eyes that it will be a tough decision to make for them."

Gelman also had a nice tidbit on Nick Evans who has been on fire.

Hagerstown (Class A) first baseman Nick Evans is one of the top prospects in the Mets system and has shown his hitting prowess this month. The 20-year-old Evans, a fifth-round pick in 2004, batted .371 with six doubles, a triple, four home runs and 15 RBI in 16 games to date in June.

David Wright and Jose Reyes were co-players of the week.

Jose Reyes and David Wright were named co-NL Players of the Week on Monday. Reyes went 13-for-26 with nine runs, while Wright had four home runs and 11 RBI.

Things are looking good for the Mets getting some serious presence at the All-Star game.

First Base
1. Albert Pujols, Cardinals, 1,777,968
2. Carlos Delgado, Mets, 700,771
3. Nomar Garciaparra, Dodgers, 497,585
4. Lance Berkman, Astros, 486,581
5. Ryan Howard, Phillies, 459,677

Third Base
1. David Wright, Mets, 1,018,804
2. Scott Rolen, Cardinals, 819,390
3. Morgan Ensberg, Astros, 531,479
4. Miguel Cabrera, Marlins, 450,276
5. Chipper Jones, Braves, 424,300

Shortstop
1. Jose Reyes, Mets, 769,919
2. David Eckstein, Cardinals, 689,054
3. Edgar Renteria, Braves, 620,836
4. Jack Wilson, Pirates, 594,919
5. Jimmy Rollins, Phillies, 514,322

Catcher
1. Paul Lo Duca, Mets, 960,111
2. Mike Piazza, Padres, 680,773
3. Yadier Molina, Cardinals, 559,305
4. Brad Ausmus, Astros, 535,338
5. Michael Barrett, Cubs, 403,985

Outfield
1. Carlos Beltran, Mets, 1,129,865
2. Alfonso Soriano, Nationals, 1,084,936
3. Jason Bay, Pirates, 1,069,986

In the holy shit department, the Cubs came to play in the Jeff Samardzija negotiations. Jeff agreed in principle with the Cubs that allows him to finish up his senior year of football for Notre Dame.

While the Cubs were still hashing out the details of the contract with Major League Baseball, Samardzija would receive $7.25 million if he makes baseball his primary sport. The Cubs have five years to pay Samardzija's bonus under baseball's rules regarding two-sport players. The deal is backloaded, with Samardzija receiving less than $1 million in the first year of the deal, according to sources with knowledge of the contract.

That's a lotta meat. However, there is still some risk there.

Samardzija threw 45 pitches in a Wrigley Field bullpen session on Friday and continued to stick to his plan: He will do his best to play both sports at as high a level as possible, until he realizes which sport is the best fit for him professionally. He had a breakout football season last fall, catching 15 touchdown passes among his 77 receptions for 1,249 yards.

Baseball Prospectus has a nice dig on Frenchy on this week's BP Hit List, which still has the Mets holding tight in the two spot.

And while Lastings Milledge (.258/.309/.468) has impressed in some areas, it's worth noting that he has yet to draw an unintentional walk in 68 plate appearances--not quite Francoeurian, but worthy of a bus ticket back to Norfolk nonetheless.

I'm not overly concerned about Milledge's lack of walks after making such huge strides in AAA this season. First off, Frenchy just goes up their hacking with no plan. Milledge has actually took some good pitches and showed a decent eye at the plate despite not walk once. Secondly, kids come up and press. They usually do not come up to walk, they come up to hit. He will settle in and start taking some free passes.

It should also be noted that the Marlins are the next NL East team on the list at 19, the Phillies check in at 21, and the Nats and the Braves are 24 and 25 respectively.