Do the standings rank teams based on ROI or Wins?

[wildcard]

I think payroll is driving player acquisition right now. The O's ended 2014 at about 107M. That was the 15th highest payroll in baseball. They will be at about 109m after signing the arbitration and 0-3 year players and trading Matusz.

Their projected budget based on how they have been increasing it over the past few years in probably around 120M. That would have placed them 11th highest in 2014. We will have to wait to see were that places them in 2015.

Dan Duquette would seem to have about 11M to add a rightfielder, part time DH and a backup catcher. I don't think the O's were planning on adding the backup catcher but the word on Wieters is that he may start the year on the DL. This probably cuts into what the O's can pay for the rightfielder.

Dariel Alvarez seems to be in the O's future plans. He projects hopefully as the O's rightfielder for the next six years whenever he is ready for a promotion from AAA. So the rightfielder the O's are trying to acquire is a stop gap player. Probably about a 5M stop gap player. Aoki fits but his price is currently higher than that. He could be a leadoff hitter which the O's need. The O's are sifting through other alternative waiting to see if Aoki's price falls or if they need to go another direction.

Hundley, Aoki and Young may be the current preferred targets but that could change at any moment.

This is all JMO.

[LoyalBirdFan]

The window theory is a crock of crap and there is no sense in even talking about it.

Spending money just to spend money is a stupid thing to do.

I agree, WAR, FIP and other stats don't win games.

A lot of teams have made big moves over the years and none of them won crap. Assuming every team that makes a move gets better is just wrong. Listening to MLBTV, over the last 3 or 4 years, talk about the Tigers, Blue Jays, Angels and Red Sox was a complete waste of time as some of them didn't even sniff the playoffs. The money spent on Dickey, Fielder, Gonzalez, Crawford, Pujols, Hamilton, etc... didn't amount to crap.

I'll worry when the 96 win Orioles fall to the bottom where they spent a good majority of the last two decades.

No one plyer is going to guarantee a WS and I want to be competive every year. I have faith in the FO and that seems to be the goal. This team right now is a question mark, but I wouldn't be surprised if they didn't win the division again next year. It's baseball, no one can predict who wins the division. There are no 1970 Orioles or Big Red Machines in baseball anymore. Those teams had ball players and not a bunch of multi millionaires.

[JR Oriole]

Spending money just to spend money is a stupid thing to do.

A lot of teams have made big moves over the years and none of them won crap.

I absolutely agree with both of these statements. And the fact that San Francisco has somehow won 3 titles in the last 5 years without being a very good team, and the Cardinals won as well, would support this notion.

That being said, not spending money for the sake of hanging on to it is not that great either.

[mdbdotcom]

I absolutely agree with both of these statements. And the fact that San Francisco has somehow won 3 titles in the last 5 years without being a very good team, and the Cardinals won as well, would support this notion.

That being said, not spending money for the sake of hanging on to it is not that great either.

We didn't do anything until February last year and it turned out pretty well. I trust DD to get things done.

[TiredofLosing20]

The arb numbers put us at 107 right now.

You are right Weams, based on BBRef. Interesting to look at the increases they are estimating if I have the 2014 contracts correct.

De Aza 39% Increase

Wieters 3% Increase

Pearce 214% Increase

Norris 64% Increase

Hunter 47% Increase

Davis 14% Increase

Matusz 13% Increase

Tillman 980% Increase

Gonzalez 640% Increase

Flaherty 100% Increase

Britton 540% Increase

[Aristotelian]

D'oh. This stat actually exists. The top teams have the lowest payroll - MIA and HOU, but of the top 10, four made the playoffs - PIT, OAK, KC, and BAL (and SEA and CLE nearly made it). The worst team had the #1 payroll and made the playoffs - LAD - but of the bottom 10, the same number (four) made the playoffs - LAD, SF, DET, and LAA.

http://www.sportingcharts.com/mlb/stats/mlb-cost-per-win-by-season/2014/

So it appears there is little correlation between making the playoffs and payroll - you can do very well or very badly with either strategy. You probably don't want to go into the season with a $40M payroll, but it appears you are just as likely to get to 90+ wins with an 80M payroll as a 200M payroll.

In 2013, four of the top 6 ROI teams won 90+ games and none of them had a payroll over 80M.

[Aristotelian]

Similar numbers in 2012. OAK won 94 games on only 55M, TB won 90 games with only 64M, and the O's, CIN, WAS, and ATL all won 90 games with <$80M. It is actually kind of shocking how poorly the teams with the highest payrolls have been doing. Maybe the numbers are just being skewed by the extremely bad management of the Phillies.

[TiredofLosing20]

Right, which gives us 10-18M to spend in 2015. I don't know why this point seems so difficult to understand, but it must be for some who keep coming on here saying our payroll isn't going up. It is going up and it is going to be pretty damn healthy.

Not sure if this is intended at me. I did qualify my initial comment by saying I hadn't studied the arb numbers. I generally didn't expect the aggregate of arb eligibles to increase nearly 60% from last year, my initial thought was around a 30% increase which would put our payroll at $92ish. Wasn't sure where the other $15mm in salary was going to come from. And after looking at BBRef estimates, (while shocked at some of the increases) I see how the dollars stack up.

[DrungoHazewood]

I'll be the one that picks this nit: These ROI numbers should be marginal wins per marginal dollar. Every team has to spend about $500k x 25 (or 27 or 28 depending on the DL), about $14M on payroll. And the worst expansion teams still win 40 games or so. So it's more accurate to quote (wins-40)/(payroll - 14M). That way you don't give a ton of credit to a team that wins 56 games on a $20M payroll.

[weams]

Similar numbers in 2012. OAK won 94 games on only 55M, TB won 90 games with only 64M, and the O's, CIN, WAS, and ATL all won 90 games with <$80M. It is actually kind of shocking how poorly the teams with the highest payrolls have been doing. Maybe the numbers are just being skewed by the extremely bad management of the Phillies.

And the Yankees. And Boston finishing last every other year.