Follow the money.
That familiar rule — employed to devastating political effect by Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein — is equally applicable to the baseball playoffs.
Three of the four remaining teams hail from the nation’s two largest metropolitan areas, New York and Los Angeles, and all three are loaded with cash.
Consider the list of 2024’s largest payrolls, as estimated by Baseball Reference. Seven clubs spent more than $240 million on players this year:
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1. New York Yankees, $291,463,084
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2. Houston Astros, $275,678,766
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3. New York Mets, $262,702,250
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4. Los Angeles Dodgers, $262,386,278
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5. Texas Rangers, $261,471,834
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6. Atlanta Braves, $260,912,300
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7. Philadelphia Phillies, $248,632,283
I’ve already noted that three of the four biggest spenders are currently involved in the Championship Series of their respective leagues. Those fortunate teams would be the Yankees, Mets, and Dodgers.
The remaining clubs from the list above either qualified for this year’s playoffs (Astros, Braves, and Phillies) or won last year’s World Series (Rangers).
Make of this what you will.
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A sense of fairness requires me to add that the American League Championship Series features an outlier. The Cleveland Guardians are on the short list of teams with payrolls below $100 million:
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1. Oakland Athletics, $55,690,000
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2. Pittsburgh Pirates, $85,226,500
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3. Cleveland Guardians, $94,230,728
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4. Cincinnati Reds, $98,323,334
The other three clubs met predictable fates in 2024. The Athletics, Pirates, and Reds all finished far out of the playoff hunt.
