Despite the exhilaration of the Minnesota Twins’ late-season hot streak which propelled them to the playoffs, Twins’ fans are sore after another early exit from the playoffs for a Minnesota pro sports team. The Minnesota Timberwolves with Kevin Garnett were notorious for such season conclusions. The Minnesota Wild (NHL) and Vikings (NFL) have had similar fates in their few postseason appearances.
All four teams appeared in a semi-final round of the postseason early in the decade; the Wild reached the Western Conference Finals in 2003, the Vikings the NFC Championship in 2000, the Twins reached the ALCS in 2002, and the Timberwolves reached the NBA Western Conference Finals in 2004.
Since then, a Vikings first-round win over the Packers in the 2004-2005 season is the extent of postseason advancement the Twin Cities have seen. The Timberwolves traded away their superstar and have been irrelevant since. The Twins, Vikings, and Wild have done no better than first-round playoff exits. The fans are starting to feel like brides’ maids and they’re looking for answers.
With the latest humiliation coming at the hands of the all-powerful Yankees, Major League Baseball’s payroll disparity is in focus. Twins’ fan Nick Nelson, keeper of a blog linked-to by ESPN.com while the Twins were in the playoffs, writes:
“…it's not difficult to see why this Yankees team is so dominant. Just look at who New York's big contributors were in this ALDS series. In Game 1, the Yankees received a dominant start from C.C. Sabathia, who they purchased for $161 million during the offseason. In Game 2, they got another strong start from A.J. Burnett, another spendy offseason rotation addition. That game ended when Mark Teixeira, their $180 million first base acquisition from the past winter, hit a walk-off homer. And the Yankees' biggest offensive game-changer throughout the entire series, Alex Rodriguez, is an admitted steroid user who made $32 million this season.”
Star Tribune sportswriter (and resident Minnesota sports grump) Patrick Reusse (ROY-see), argues that the Twins have done plenty of spending of late, and that it was not the difference in the series. His strongest support of this is that Twins’ closer Joe Nathan is not low-priced talent. The Twins have paid him well, and he blew Game 2 “because he couldn’t breathe”. Reusse is silent on the fact that the two runs scored off Nathan in that game were scored by $20 million man Mark Texeira, and $33 million man Alex Rodriguez. Nathan made $11 million this year, making him the 2nd-highest paid Twin in 2009, behind Justin Morneau. He’d be the 10th-highest paid Yankee at that price.
Reusse’s also quiet about the fact that when the Yankees needed a 3rd-baseman years ago, they went and bought the game’s top shortstop (Rodriguez) and turned him into a 3rd-baseman. The Twins, unable to shell out $20-$30 million per year to grab Mark Texeira and turn him into a 3rd-baseman, settled for injury-plagued castoff Joe Crede when they had such a need.
When the Yankees develop talent from their own system, they can afford to keep it (Mariano Rivera, Derek Jeter). When the Twins develop talent, the New York Mets (Johan Santana) and Los Angeles Angels (Torii Hunter) can afford to keep it. Imagine how different the series might have been had the Yankees not been able to afford just Alex Rodriguez and Mark Texeira, and had the Twins been able to start Johan Santana against $15 million man C.C. Sabathia (taken by the Yankees last season cause the Milwaukee Brewers could not afford a competitive salary offer) in Game 1 rather than league-minimum-earning Brian Duensing.
The other three major professional sports in the United States (the NFL, the NBA, the NHL) all consider salary caps fair enough to impose on their leagues.
A League of 12 (plus 2 or 3)
The MLB playoffs in recent years have played out as if roughly 5 of the 8 playoff spots are reserved for teams in the top 12 of payrolls, and the other three playoff spots are reserved for teams good enough to make it on a smaller payroll, usually with at least one other team coming from the top-half of payrolls.
Listed below are the playoff teams by year, categorized by teams from the Top 12 of payrolls for that year, teams that round out that top half of payrolls (#13 - #15), and teams from the bottom half (15 teams) of payrolls for the league.
*note: these rankings are based on payroll at the beginning of the season. it's not necessarily the same at season's end. The 2009 Cardinals, for example, ended the season 13th in payroll.
2009
Top 12: Yankees (#1), Red Sox (#4), Angels (#6), Phillies (#7), Dodgers (#9)
#13 – 15:
Bottom Half: Cardinals (#17), Rockies (#18), Twins (#24)
2008
Top 12: Red Sox (#4), White Sox (#5), Angels (#6), Dodgers (#7), Cubs (#8), Phillies (#12)
#13 – 15: Brewers (#15)
Bottom Half: Rays (#29)
2007
Top 12: Yankees (#1), Red Sox (#2), Angels (#4), Cubs (#8)
#13 – 15: Phillies (#13)
Bottom Half: Rockies (#25), Indians (#23), Diamondbacks (#26)
2006
Top 12: Yankees (#1), Cardinals (#11), Dodgers (#6), Mets (#5)
#13 – 15: Tigers (#14)
Bottom Half: Padres (#17), Twins (#19), Athletics (#21)
2005
Top 12: Yankees (#1), Red Sox (#2), Angels (#4), Cardinals (#6), Braves (#10), Astros (#12)
#13 – 15: White Sox (#13)
Bottom Half: Padres (#16)
2004
Top 12: Yankees (#1), Red Sox (#2), Angels (#3), Astros (#12), Braves (#8), Dodgers (#6), Cardinals (#9)
#13 – 15: n/a
Bottom Half: Twins (#19)
The strategy for increasing your team’s chances of making the playoffs seems straightforward: get the team’s payroll into the top 12 of MLB payrolls. Notice I said “increasing your team’s chances”, Yankees fans determined to maintain their sense of superiority to everyone else will quickly observe their neighbors to the south, the New York Mets, as evidence that high payroll is no guarantee of a postseason berth.
Of course it is no guarantee. It is extremely difficult to maintain, however, that it is no advantage compared to teams in the bottom 12 of payrolls.
Almost no one would argue that all 30 teams should have precisely equal payrolls. Victors are entitled to some spoils, and I'm not just talking pennant-winners. Winning is well-known to be a great revenue-generator, but if a team manages to find other creative means of generating revenue, it is not fair to ask them to share it equally with teams that put a poor product on the field or fail to market well or field a team of steroid-users or whatever.
Another interesting facet of the debate is the St. Louis Cardinals' presence in the Top 12 of payrolls of many seasons. They are in a smaller market than the Twins, by multiple measures. This is not entirely a small market vs. big market issue. It is, for sure, just not entirely.
The New York Mets have shown repeated futility lately, but their big-market position gives them enough revenue that they could turn it around any given season. The Kansas City Royals, in MLB's smallest market, seem doomed to mediocrity for a long time to come given their small market and poor output.
How much should MLB alter the system to offer Kansas City Royals fans more of a chance to hope that any season could be the beginning of a turn-around? Have teams like the Twins of this decade, the Marlins of 1997 and 2003, and the Rockies of 2007 found a formula for consistent winning that could be followed by the Royals, Reds, and Pirates of the league to engineer seasons of consistent winning without a cap? Would a cap be a fair way to even the playing field?
We Twins fans take enormous pride that our team has found its way into the playoffs despite the obvious disadvantage it's had with its low-payroll position. We see it as the result of honorable, collective effort by every member of the organization, on the field, in the front offices, down on the farm, in the scouting field, etc. So long as the system stays as it is, we will continue to be unimpressed by a team that corners the market on the big-name players as the Yankees do, even if they beat our team 100 straight times. We'll be impressed once they do it with our team's payroll.
