Does Building a Better Team Matter? Of Course It Does!

"The road of excess leads to the palace of wisdom." – George Steinbrenner  William Blake

It's already become a truism that baseball’s new Collective Bargaining Agreement contains financial incentives that will cause the Yankees to rein in spending. The jury is out on whether this talk of the Steinbrenners devolving into the Wilpons is just noise. This post rather explores one of the underlying rationalizations associated with this approach.

From a baseball perspective, the question is whether intelligently shopping at Tiffany's increases the odds of winning the World Series. Modern conventional wisdom, as recently expressed by writer Bob Klapisch, often argues that being just good enough to get into the playoffs is sufficient, not building the best team. The "logic", deriving from Billy Beane's famous statement that the playoffs are a crapshoot, is that the best team does not always win, luck is involved, so why build the best team?
Here is how Klapisch's article expresses this perspective:

Indeed, the Yankees point to Philadelphia’s failure to win the pennant in the past two years — despite adding Cliff Lee and Roy Halladay — as proof that there’s no such thing as a sure thing. Not anymore.

'You’re looking at probably the best team in baseball since 2010, and they couldn’t even win their own league,' said the Yankee insider, referring to the Phillies' back-to-back defeats in the National League playoffs. 'It makes you re-think.'

... There’s no need — no point, actually — in building a 110-win roster....

'The idea now, for all of us, is just get there,' said a rival GM

Let’s hope this Yankee "insider" isn't actually deciding anything; a decision-maker shouldn’t have needed the 2010-2011 Phillies to make him "think" in this respect. You’d hope anyone actually making baseball decisions was aware that the Hitless Wonder White Sox upset the Cubs in 1906, the Miracle Braves beat the A’s in 1914, the Pirates upset the Yankees in 1960, the Mets beat the Orioles in 1969, etc.

Anyway, this line of thinking is illogical: the fact that you cannot build a guaranteed winner does not therefore mean there is zero benefit in attempting to field the best team possible according to your available resources. Better players always increase the odds of better results.

If the Yankees indeed start making decisions in order to take advantage of the changes to revenue sharing, let's just call it by its correct name - greed - and not pretend that "just being good enough to make the playoffs and then crossing your fingers" would make no difference to the team's mission statement of trying to win it all every year.  The Yankees do not have 27 World Championships because their owners were running the team like a fantasy baseball team.

Certainly in 2010 and 2011, the team with the best roster did not win the World Series (or even the NL pennant). But in 2009, splurging to put the best possible team did help the World Champion Yankees. Let's do an exercise to explore the implications of the "building the best team does not matter" philosophy to that team.

To begin, take a look at this spreadsheet of the 2009 Yankees payroll. The first worksheet, named "Calculator", shows the salaries of the opening day roster, with 2 calculated cells:

• Cell E1 sums the salaries and adds an estimated $9 million to account for benefits (since MLB includes benefits, not just salary, when computing luxury tax.
• In 2009, the luxury tax threshold - the total team salary amount above which a team must pay the luxury tax - was $162 million. Cell F1 subtracts that amount from cell E1 to show the amount the team exceeded the threshold - the Yankees were over by $48,449,189.

This amount is actually lower than the total salary upon which the team was taxed; in reality the team had to pay tax on money due players not on the roster, such as a $5 million golden parachute the Yankees doled out to Jason Giambi when they did not pick up his 2009 option, and also to pay mid-season pickups such as Jerry Hairston and Erik Hinske.  However, we'll use this to keep the exercise to which this article is leading simple.


96% of the team's salary consisted of the 15 players with at least $3 million salaries, ranging from Damaso Marte at $3.75 million to A-Rod at $33 million. Since the 2009 Yankees finished 8 games ahead of Boston, and would have won the wild card by 16 games if Boston had finished ahead of them, clearly they could have made the postseason without all 15 of these players.

Of the 15, 2 - Chien-Ming Wang and Xavier Nady - were injured almost all year. The remaining 13 all made crucial contributions to wins in the postseason. Of course other players who were relative bargains, such as Melky Cabrera, Joba Chamberlain, and David Robertson, contributed. But for the next step in this exercise (and a fun stroll down Memory Lane), the following itemizes notable contributions these 13 players made towards the Yankees 11 postseason wins.

The Yanks swept the Twins in the ALDS, with the following key contributions from the $3 million-plus players:

• Game 1:
• CC Sabathia dominated
• Jeter, Matsui, A-Rod each drove in 2 runs
• Game 2:
• AJ Burnett gave up 1 run in 6 innings.
•  In the top of the 4th, with Chris Gomez on first and Delmon Young on second and 2 outs, Matt Tolbert singled.  As Young went for home Swisher threw behind Gomez to nail him before Young could score.
• With the Yankees down 3-1 in the bottom of the 9th, A-Rod tied it up with a 2-run HR off closer Joe Nathan.
• Teixeira hit an 11th-inning walkoff.
• Game 3:
  
• With the Yankees down 1-0 in the 7th, A-Rod and Posada both homered.
• With Minnesota threatening to tie in the 8th, Jeter made a nice play up the middle and then nailed Nick Punto when Punto rounded third too aggressively.
• Posada and Cano had 1-out single in the 9th to tack on and make it a 4-1 game.
• Andy Pettitte matched Carl Pavano's excellent start with 6.1 innings of 1-run ball.
• Mariano closed it out. In the series he pitched 3.2 shutout innings with 7 Ks.

Even though it was a sweep, games 2-3 were close, meaning if any of these performances did not occur the Twins could have won one or both of them and wrested away the ALDS from the Yankees.

The Yankees won the ALCS 4-2 against an excellent Angels team. The games were mostly close, and the following performances were critical:

• Game 1:
• Sabathia dominated.
• Jeter, Damon, A-Rod, and Matsui combined to give the Yanks a first-inning 2-0 lead they never relinquished.
• Matsui and Jeter drove in the other 2 runs.
• Mariano closed it out.
• Game 2:
• AJ Burnett gave a 2-run, 6.1 inning performance.
•  In the 8th inning, with the game tied and runners on first and second, Mariano came in to close the inning out, and then pitched 2 more scoreless innings, mostly against the heart of the Angels’ lineup.
•  Cano's 2nd-inning triple scored Swisher for the game's first run.
• Jeter's 3rd-inning HR made it 2-0.
• After the Angels took a 3-2 lead in the 11th inning, A-Rod tied it back up with a homer off of Angels closer Brian Fuentes.
• Game 4: 
• Sabathia dominated.
•  In a game where the Yankees slugged 10 runs, the 13 players we are examining scored 7 and knocked in 5, including 2 big homers by Damon and A-Rod.
• Game 6: 
• In the 4th, Cano, Swisher, Jeter, Damon, Teixeira, and A-Rod combined for 3 runs to give the Yankees a 3-1 lead.
•  In the 8th, the Yanks scored 2 for a 5-2 lead. Cano contributed with a lead-off walk and Teixeira with a 1-out sacrifice fly.
• Andy Pettitte pitched 6.1 innings of 1-run ball.
• Mariano closed it out.

In the World Series, the Yankees won 4-2 against the defending World Champion Phillies. The games again were tense and hard-fought, and the 13 players we are covering make the following contributions to victories:

• Game 2:
• After the Yankees lost game 1, AJ Burnett pitched 7 innings of 1-run ball to outduel Pedro Martinez.
• Teixeira and Matsui homered for the first 2 Yankee runs.
• Posada drove in the third run with a 7th-inning single.
• Mariano closed out the 3-1 win with a 2-inning save.
• Game 3:
• With the Yankees down 3-0 in the 4th, A-Rod hits a 2-run homer to break up Cole Hamels’ shutout.
•  In the 5th, Swisher, Jeter, Damon, and, surprisingly, Andy Pettitte, gave the Yanks a 5-3 lead.
•  Pettitte kept the Yankees in the game, giving up 4 runs in 6 innings.
•  Swisher homered in the 6th to make it 6-3.
•  In the 7th, Posada drove in Damon to make it 7-4.
•  In the 8th, Matsui pinch-hit a homer to make it 8-4.
• Marte pitched a scoreless 8th against the dangerous trio of Ryan Howard, Jason Werth, and Raul Ibanez.
• Mariano closed it out in the 9th.
• Game 4:
• Sabathia gives the Yanks 6.2 innings of 3-run ball on 3 days rest, leaving the game with a 4-3 lead.
•  Jeter, Damon, Teixeira, A-Rod, and Posada contribute to the Yankees’ 2-run first inning.
• Swisher, Jeter, and Damon contribute to 2 4th-inning runs to give the Yankees a 4-2 lead.
• After Utley homered off of CC to make it 4-3 in the 7th, Marte ended the inning by whiffing Ryan Howard.
• In the 9th inning, after the Phillies had tied the game up in the 8th, Damon battled Phillies closer Brad Lidge with a great 2-out at-bat resulting in a single.
• With Teixeira up, the Phillies employed a shift. In one of the headiest plays in World Series history, Damon stole second and then, aware that 3rd base was unprotected due to the shift, rambled on to 3rd. This arguably robbed Lidge of his best pitch -a devastating slider - due to the passed ball risk.
• After Teixeira was hit by a pitch, A-Rod then laced a double off a fastball to drive in Damon.
• Posada singled to tack on 2 runs.
• Mariano closed it out.
• Game 6:
• In the 2nd, Matsui hit a 2-run homer off of Pedro Martinez to put the Yanks in the lead.
• In the 3rd, Matsui singled in Damon and Jeter for a 4-1 lead.
• Teixeira drove in Jeter to give the Yankes a 5-1 lead in the 5th.
• Matsui then doubled in Teixeira and A-Rod.
• In the 7th, the Yankees 7-3 lead fell into jeopardy when Joba Chamberlain put 2 runners on to bring up Chase Utley, who already had 5 homers in the series. Marte snuffed out the rally with a strikeout, and then whiffed Ryan Howard to open the 8th.
• Mariano closed it out.

Now here is the exercise to perform. If the 2009 Yankees mission statement was to "build a good enough team to make the playoffs but keep the payroll under $162 million, then who would you take off? And as you remove them, do you think that this would have lowered the Yankees' odds of beating the Twins, Angels, and Phillies? In this exercise, follow these rules:

• Restrict yourself to the players with salaries over $3 million.
• Do not take off  the 2 injured players, Nady and Wang. This is to keep the game honest, in 2 respects: 
• Since injuries occur, it's almost cheating to retroactively remove the 2 players who had injuries.
• As mentioned earlier, the Yankees' 2009 payroll calculated for luxury tax purposes included obligations other than those listed, so keeping these 2 guys on in our exercise helps offset that.
• You'll need to get far enough below $162 million to allow for some sort of replacement. For example, if you remove Posada, you'll have to allot some salary for someone to catch, even if it is just someone at the major league minimum of $400,000.

Note: If you do not have a Google Docs account and would like to do this exercise in your spreadsheet program, select File, then Download As, then Excel or OpenOffice.

In my attempt, I got rid of Teixeira, Burnett, Damon, and Marte, which left me about $5.4 million below the limit. Just looking at the World Series alone, it puts all 4 wins at risk. For example, without Marte the Yankees' only lefty relief option against Utley and Howard would have been Phil Coke, whom Girardi clearly had lost confidence in. Without Burnett, who makes the critical game 2 start; if it's Joba Chamberlain, who steps into the bullpen for him? Damon and Teixeira had key plays - especially Damon's at-bat and baserunning in the crucial 9th inning of Game 4.

Of course one could argue that, oh, Brett Gardner might have had the October of his life or that some cheap player would have replaced Teixeira. One could argue that Ian Kennedy would have given the Yankees what AJ Burnett did; after all, AJ had a couple of bad postseason starts. Without doubt - but it is just speculation. The point here is that the talented players the Yankees front office put on the field won enough of their confrontations with opposing hitters and pitchers to propel the Yankees to a World Championship, which lesser players well may not have. The approach of fielding the best team worked out well for the Yankees in 2009, as it has overall for the last 90-plus years.