Brewers' payroll discussion

[homer]

To kick things off, here are the payroll ranks of the World Series participants for the last ten seasons (asterisk by winner) followed by the Brewers payroll rank in parentheses (all data from Sportrac):

2024 - #2, #5* - Brewers (21)

2023 - #4*, #20 (21)

2022 - #4, #8* (19)

2021 - #11*, #4 (19)

2020 - #1*, #28 (23)

2019 - #7*, #8 (16)

2018 - #1*, #3 (22)

2017 - #1, #17* (30)

2016 - #5*, #18 (30)

2015 - #13*, #19 (24)

 

[Frisbee Slider]

The very highest spending teams don’t appear in the World Series as often as we think.

It is not uncommon for teams outside of top ten in payroll to make it to World Series.

I think the Brewers have been objectively more entertaining and competitive than the Packers over the same time period. (For alternative salary structure comparison)

[TURBO]

So, 8 of the 10 years listed, at least one of the teams that made it to the world series was in the top 5, 7 of the 10 were in the top 4, and 3 of the 10 were (#1) the highest payroll team in all of baseball.

If anyone is trying to say that team salary makes no difference, this proves it in fact does.

I know we have those here who like to say and act like we don't need to spend money to win, and why a small market team's fans would take that side is beyond me, but at the very least, it sure as hell improves your chances.

[TURBO]

26 minutes ago, Frisbee Slider said:

The very highest spending teams don’t appear in the World Series as often as we think.

 

In 3 of the last 8 seasons, the highest paid team was in the World Series.  That's pretty good odds in my book.

[Devinep]

It’s funny just as I pulled up this thread the Dodgers just signed Tanner Scott. But money doesn’t mean winning 

[homer]

My hunch is that the gap between the top 5 teams and the next like dozen teams has grown the last five years or so. If I have time I'll try and figure that out 

[Frisbee Slider]

2 hours ago, TURBO said:

If anyone is trying to say that team salary makes no difference, this proves it in fact does.

 

Everyone should agree Milwaukee having a higher payroll would be nice. It is suspect to want the Brewers to commit a quarter billion or half billion dollars to brand name free agents. That’s just poor decision making in many cases. 

I would rather root against MLB teams that spend too much money unwisely than watch a product that is mediocre by design like the NFL. I loved rooting against Dallas and San Francisco in the early 90’s but those teams don’t exist in the NFL anymore since 1994 salary cap.

[Redd Vencher]

Using groupings like top 5, top 10, top 15, whatever when doing these analyses on World Series aren't actually showing what people think they're showing. Working from a 50-50 chance to win a playoff series, the current format has a 12.5%-25% to make the WS. (6.25%-12.5% to wind) If you've got 4 of the top 5 payrolls in the playoffs 1 year, you're looking at a 50%-100% of a top 5 payroll team making the WS. (25%-50% to win it) Obviously, a higher payroll makes a team more likely to make the playoffs than not, but this makes the results suggest you have to have a high payroll to win in the playoffs when it's just a larger share of the WS lotto tickets in the bracket than any solid law of baseball playoffs.

[wiguy94]

3 hours ago, TURBO said:

So, 8 of the 10 years listed, at least one of the teams that made it to the world series was in the top 5, 7 of the 10 were in the top 4, and 3 of the 10 were (#1) the highest payroll team in all of baseball.

If anyone is trying to say that team salary makes no difference, this proves it in fact does.

I know we have those here who like to say and act like we don't need to spend money to win, and why a small market team's fans would take that side is beyond me, but at the very least, it sure as hell improves your chances.

In the playoffs it doesn't make as much of a difference because the series are such small sample size that anyone can win, but over a 162 game regular season that additional money and roster depth is massive.

These were the 40-man payroll ranks of last year's playoff teams.

Mets - 1

Yankees - 2

Dodgers - 3

Phillies - 4

Astros - 5

Braves - 7

Padres - 15

Royals - 21

Royals - 22

Cleveland - 23

Orioles - 24

Detroit - 27

So the top 5 teams in 40 man payroll made the playoffs last year and 6 of the top 7 did. Of the 5 bottom half payroll teams to make the playoffs 4 of them were in Central divisions and the other tanked for many years to load up on top prospects.

Money more often than not = wins in the regular season

[wiguy94]

2 hours ago, homer said:

My hunch is that the gap between the top 5 teams and the next like dozen teams has grown the last five years or so. If I have time I'll try and figure that out 

I'd say it's more a top 4. Dodgers, Yankees, Mets, Phillies have just blown past the tax line. There are other big payroll teams but they don't blow past the tax line that much. Per Cot's those four I listed are all above $295M for 2025 in CBT payroll projections. San Diego is presently 5th at $247M

 

[Playing Catch]

21 hours ago, TURBO said:

I know we have those here who like to say and act like we don't need to spend money to win, and why a small market team's fans would take that side is beyond me, but at the very least, it sure as hell improves your chances.

I think this is the crux of our collective opinions on competitive balance.

I don't think ANYONE argues that the system is as fair as a 50/50 coin flip. I think everyone acknowledges that in the next 100 years, the Yankees and Dodgers will have a lot more World Series opportunities than the Brewers.

I think the question is like that offered by MLB Trade Rumors last night. Do we fans WANT baseball to be as balanced competitively as the NFL? Do we WANT a hard salary cap?

I've mentioned it before, but I like that baseball has the Yankees and, (now), the Dodgers. My problem is that the competitive imbalance is so far out of whack that we, of small-market fandom, have to parse out the statistical odds to openly justify our belief or non-belief that the Brewers can win a World Series in our lifetime.

I don't know what it will look like, but I believe baseball will continue to increase revenue sharing, as well as implement a soft spending floor (so any shared revenue not spent on payroll goes back to the players somehow), in order for the current competitive imbalance to be more balanced --- if not perfectly balanced.

[SF70]

21 hours ago, TURBO said:

So, 8 of the 10 years listed, at least one of the teams that made it to the world series was in the top 5, 7 of the 10 were in the top 4, and 3 of the 10 were (#1) the highest payroll team in all of baseball.

If anyone is trying to say that team salary makes no difference, this proves it in fact does.

I know we have those here who like to say and act like we don't need to spend money to win, and why a small market team's fans would take that side is beyond me, but at the very least, it sure as hell improves your chances.

With regards to your last paragraph — some of us that think we can win without spending are convinced our FO has figured out a way to win without spending a bottom-half or even bottom third payroll.

They’ve won without a strong infrastructure and now that they have that, the future looks brighter than ever, as Aram & Jack of ‘Just Baseball’ confirmed by ranking MKE 3rd in all of baseball in the best 5 year future category. Behind large-markets LAD & Boston, and ahead of the Yankees & Mets. Just think about that ranking for a minute.

Selfishly I don’t want a hard cap or fundamental changes to the game’s financial structure, at least not while we have the best SM FO & infrastructure currently in the MLB.

[mtsportsfan]

But wouldn't it be better to have a cap and floor with one of the best FO? Maybe we could actually retain some of the players we find instead of being a quadruple farm club for the Dodgers, Yankees ......  This system is broken and needs to be fixed! The fans who don't want this are the rich club fans. I don't really care how MLB needs the Yankees, Dodgers to be good , I just want my team to have a chance to win it , not every fifteen years as long as everything goes right!  NFL does it right!

[Fear The Chorizo]

On 1/19/2025 at 11:46 AM, homer said:

My hunch is that the gap between the top 5 teams and the next like dozen teams has grown the last five years or so. If I have time I'll try and figure that out 

I think you're right - there's definitely a growing chasm between those top 5-6 teams and the rest of the league.  What's even a bigger joke is the yearly payrolls don't take into account the financial gymnastics huge market teams make with deferred salaries each year (i.e., Ohtani's payroll figure for the Dodgers was $2M last year).

 

The deferred money weirdness teams with huge TV contracts can do skews haves from have nots in terms of who can actually pay the "going rate" for top tier free agents, too.

[bigred]

13 hours ago, SF70 said:

With regards to your last paragraph — some of us that think we can win without spending are convinced our FO has figured out a way to win without spending a bottom-half or even bottom third payroll.

They’ve won without a strong infrastructure and now that they have that, the future looks brighter than ever, as Aram & Jack of ‘Just Baseball’ confirmed by ranking MKE 3rd in all of baseball in the best 5 year future category. Behind large-markets LAD & Boston, and ahead of the Yankees & Mets. Just think about that ranking for a minute.

Selfishly I don’t want a hard cap or fundamental changes to the game’s financial structure, at least not while we have the best SM FO & infrastructure currently in the MLB.

Like several here have said many times before, we've been consistently winning division championships & making the playoffs for quite a while now, but when will that finally stop being enough to pacify our fan base? We're talking about actually doing what it takes once in a while, to actually try a win it all, instead of relying on pure luck, year in and year out. 

[jay87shot]

I am not one to complain to much about the Brewers payroll usually however our opening day payroll is looking like it is going to be slightly down again after being at a high of 131 m in 2022. I get that we are the smallest market, the tv contract uncertainty, and Attenasio is on of the poorer owners (not really a huge deal) but with the recent success it really seems like we should be able advance payroll and not go backwards. Currently spotrac has us at 99.1 million in payroll allocations with total payroll at 110.9 after deferred money and buyouts. Maybe the team overextended in 2022 but I struggle to see why we can't get to the 135 ish mark like 2022. 

I try not to complain to much when the Dodgers, Mets, Yanks, among others spend big, but it just makes it hard when the Dodgers utility players Taylor/Edman would be our 3rd highest players. 

I know owners don't have to disclose finances to the public but does anyone know if they need to share there finances to the league offices? 

[liveforoctober]

Do we think we spend less of the working budget allotment each year compared to other teams re: player pay? Or are we just expecting Mark to dip into his pockets to make a personal contribution on top of that budget for that extra few % chance ... and if he does that and the Brewers over perform does he get the extra money he spent returned in full or does the extra generated revenue get split amongst the other owners, etc like normal profit/loss?

Everyone that loses their minds over "Mark is cheap! He can spend more!" .. I would love to hear how much money they think it costs to run the Brewers each year. We see payroll and compare it to others then get upset.

Genuine questions.

[SF70]

$10-15M less in local TV revenue matters.

When all is said and done, imo, the OD payroll will be close to where it was last year on OD, with money set aside to be used at the trade-deadline, just like last year when they added payroll.

 

[SF70]

2 hours ago, bigred said:

Like several here have said many times before, we've been consistently winning division championships & making the playoffs for quite a while now, but when that finally stop being enough to pacify our fan base? We're talking about actually doing what it takes once in a while, to actually try a win it all, instead of relying on pure luck, year in and year out. 

Consistently winning WITHOUT an elite infrastructure — Our infrastructure rebuild was completed, I would argue, when we opened our state of the art Dominican Academy in 2023. 

We need to maintain financial-flexibility while we accumulate impact prospect talent thru our elite prospect-procurement systems. Steady as she goes and later this decade we will have as much talent as any team in baseball not named the Dodgers.

In the meantime we can still win division titles and possibly get hot and lucky one year and still win it all. 

[Soupbone]

I'm not sure MLB wants the small teams to win it all. More money in revenue when big market teams are there. Just a lot of lip service to the bottom 20 teams to pacify them and the fan base with " WE MADE THE PLAYOFFS AND ONE OR TWO OF THE BIG MARKET TEAMS DIDN'T"  WHOOPEE

[tomwopat]

I'd love to be able to see the rankings of the WS participants' payroll in the 3 or 5 year window surrounding their appearance.

It seems like the teams that make it to the WS don't just spend in the years they make it, they spend in the other years too.

It's hard to argue with the effectiveness of the Brewers' strategy to make the postseason as many years as possible, but it's equally easy to see how this affects the likelihood of them making it through to the WS once they get there.

[liveforoctober]

6 hours ago, tomwopat said:

I'd love to be able to see the rankings of the WS participants' payroll in the 3 or 5 year window surrounding their appearance.

It seems like the teams that make it to the WS don't just spend in the years they make it, they spend in the other years too.

It's hard to argue with the effectiveness of the Brewers' strategy to make the postseason as many years as possible, but it's equally easy to see how this affects the likelihood of them making it through to the WS once they get there.

I guess I just don't know what we are wanting them to do? We have the 6th most wins in MLB over the last 5 years ... do fans want them to add $80million/yr to payroll? Or do they think an extra $7mil for a 1WAR 3B is going to win us a world series?

[umphrey]

18 hours ago, liveforoctober said:

I guess I just don't know what we are wanting them to do? We have the 6th most wins in MLB over the last 5 years ... do fans want them to add $80million/yr to payroll? Or do they think an extra $7mil for a 1WAR 3B is going to win us a world series?

I want them to kill the super teams that gobble up every single player. And this year the LAD payroll is going to be well over 6x that of the bottom spender ($300m+ vs $42m), it’s unacceptable and boring to see minor league teams playing MLB games. 

[Jopal78]

My question would be does increased payroll directly correlate to increased franchise value or even increased profits?
 

They’re professional baseball teams after all, and not some entity that has any sort of fiduciary duty to their fans.

I think the Brewer’s owner has done a fantastic job with the product he has put out on the field compared to the last 10 years before buying the team, and in comparison to similarly situated franchises: Pittsburgh Cincinnati, Cleveland, Kansas City, Detroit, etc. 

Attanasio doesn’t owe me anything, and is unpopular as it may be doesn’t owe any of you anything either. I don’t understand why people think someone should invest more money in payroll without a direct correlation to it benefiting him somehow,  especially if it means running his team at a loss or investing more revenue (his own money) than his market will bear.

[tmwiese55]

13 minutes ago, Jopal78 said:

My question would be does increased payroll directly correlate to increased franchise value or even increased profits?
 

They’re professional baseball teams after all, and not some entity that has any sort of fiduciary duty to their fans.

I think the Brewer’s owner has done a fantastic job with the product he has put out on the field compared to the last 10 years before buying the team, and in comparison to similarly situated franchises: Pittsburgh Cincinnati, Cleveland, Kansas City, Detroit, etc. 

Attanasio doesn’t owe me anything, and is unpopular as it may be doesn’t know any of you anything either.I don’t understand why people think someone should invest more money and payroll without a direct correlation to it benefiting him somehow especially if it means running his team at a loss or investing more revenue (his own money) than his market will bear.

While also ignoring that he's only like 40% owner and not being megarich (relative to sports owners) so he can't just eat hundreds of millions in losses because the other owners matter and he personally can't just eat that loss like a Steve Ballmer can.     Few mill, sure, but not tens or hundreds of million per year