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Friday, October 14, 2011
Chance of making playoffs, based on payroll
Back in April 2010, I had a quick indicator to determine the chance a team of making the playoffs (or, more accurately, having a playoff-level team, i.e., winning at least 89 games):
Chance of Playoffs = (Payroll Index / 2) - 23
I figured I’d check to see how it worked out for 2011. Payroll Index is simply the team payroll divided by the league average. Anyway, let’s see what we get (doing this as we speak):
PayIndx 89winChance Wins
218% 86% 97 New York Yankees
186% 70% 102 Philadelphia Phillies
174% 64% 90 Boston Red Sox
149% 52% 86 Los Angeles Angels
138% 46% 79 Chicago White Sox
135% 44% 71 Chicago Cubs
128% 41% 77 New York Mets
127% 41% 86 San Francisco Giants
121% 38% 63 Minnesota Twins
114% 34% 95 Detroit Tigers
114% 34% 90 St. Louis Cardinals
112% 33% 82 Los Angeles Dodgers
99% 27% 96 Texas Rangers
95% 24% 73 Colorado Rockies
94% 24% 89 Atlanta Braves
93% 24% 67 Seattle Mariners
92% 23% 96 Milwaukee Brewers
92% 23% 69 Baltimore Orioles
82% 18% 79 Cincinnati Reds
76% 15% 56 Houston Astros
72% 13% 74 Oakland Athletics
69% 11% 80 Washington Nationals
67% 11% 81 Toronto Blue Jays
61% 8% 72 Florida Marlins
58% 6% 94 Arizona Diamondbacks
53% 3% 80 Cleveland Indians
49% 2% 71 San Diego Padres
49% 1% 72 Pittsburgh Pirates
44% -1% 91 Tampa Bay Rays
39% -4% 71 Kansas City Royals
The top 4 teams based on payroll had an expectation of seeing 2.7 teams winning at least 89 games. We actually had 3, and the Angels barely missed out on that.
The next 8 teams in payroll had an expectation of 3.1 teams winning at least 89 games. We had 2, with the Giants barely missing out.
The 8 teams after that had an expectation of 1.8 teams, and we had 2 above, and one that hit 89 on the nose.
Finally, the bottom 10 teams had an expectation of 0.5 teams, and we had 2.
The results don’t seem out of line from expectations. It’s a bit hard to tell because we had 10 teams with at least 89 wins, which is two more than normal. You certainly can’t conclude that payroll doesn’t matter.
(Negative chances are the result of making the equation linear. So, it’ll break down at extreme levels, and having a payroll at less than half the league average is a breaking point.)