Payroll Insanity

Hey Marlins… you had the opportunity to keep alive the ultimate Big Market/Small Market scenario.

The Marlins lost a couple of games to the lowly Giants in the bottom of the 9th and are slipping out of the realistic playoff picture.

Keep that in mind as I map this out:

The White Sox currently have a better winning percentage than the Red Sox.
The Red Sox lead over the Twins is only _ a game and they are tied in the loss column.
And the Red Sox have 60% of their rotation as a question mark with Beckett’s hand injury, Buccholz stinking and Paul Byrd without his injectable God.

The Rays are pulling away, the Yankees are dead as are the Tigers.

It is possible that the Red Sox, Yankees and Tigers… the three biggest payrolls in the AL, would all miss the playoffs.

Meanwhile the Rays with the smallest payroll would be in.
And the Twins, the team that was almost contracted and had to shed contracts last winter, might be in too.

And yet there are still some people who say baseball needs a salary cap to stay competitive.

Which brings us back to the Marlins.
If the Marlins won those games they’d still be in the hunt…
And with the Phillies pitching and hitting woes and the Mets bullpen in disarray, winning the division would have been in sight.

If that happened, then the Mets, the team with the highest payroll in the NL would be out and the Marlins, the smallest payroll in baseball, would be in.

What I am saying is… it’s not how much money you spend. It’s how you spend it.

Case in point… the Marlins let go of Carl Pavano and the Yankees signed him.
Which team was the smart one?