Which MLB teams are actually trying? Charting a divided league’s haves and have-nots

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In the eyes of Major League Baseball executives, money alone cannot guarantee you the World Series. To capture a title requires execution, determination and, perhaps most of all, good fortune. The baseball postseason can be a crapshoot, especially in its recently expanded format.

What money does provide, executives on both sides of MLB’s payroll divide will tell you, is more opportunities to win it all. If October is a lottery, spending helps produce more tickets. The correlation between spending and winning is obvious. A team with a top-10 payroll has won five of the past six championships. The outcome last October made the sport’s disparity appear even starker.

The most recent World Series pitted the team with the sport’s largest competitive-balance tax payroll, the Los Angeles Dodgers, against the team ranked third on that list, the New York Yankees. (The second-place club, the New York Mets, lost to the Dodgers in the National League Championship Series.) The Dodgers have paid for a top-five CBT payroll in every season since Mark Walter’s Guggenheim group purchased the club midway through 2012. The team has not missed the postseason since 2013. The Yankees have appeared in the postseason in seven of the past eight years; their payroll has ranked in the top six each season.

The conversation about baseball’s haves and have-nots bled into the offseason, as the Dodgers, Yankees and Mets tossed around hundreds of millions while nine teams declined to sign any player to a multiyear contract. All of this has occurred as the sport’s collective bargaining agreement approaches its expiration date. A labor stoppage is expected to occur as the owners and the Major League Baseball Players Association negotiate a new agreement after the 2026 season. The duration and severity of that stoppage may depend on the willingness of ownership to push for a salary cap.

For fans caught between the coasts, rooting for teams who lack the revenue-producing force of Dodgers two-way star Shohei Ohtani or the deep pockets of Mets owner Steve Cohen, a common complaint is “The owner isn’t trying to win.” The simplest, most public way for any owner to demonstrate a commitment to winning is through spending, either on free agents, by trading for high-salaried players or by inking top prospects to extensions.

With another work stoppage on the horizon, we thought it would be worthwhile to create a visual representation of that principle, at least as it has occurred during the life cycle of this current CBA, which began in 2022. On the X-axis, we plotted regular-season winning percentage during that period. On the Y-axis, we plotted CBT payroll, as compiled by Baseball Prospectus. The scatterplot revealed four distinct groups, one clear anomaly — and insight into the current competitive landscape.

Powerhouses

See that dot in the upper-right corner of the screen? They shouldn’t be hard to identify. The Dodgers have set the standard for the sport in recent years. The Mets have actually out-spent the Dodgers during this period, although the most expensive Mets team, the 2023 version, missed the postseason. Both clubs have surpassed the Yankees as the sport’s preeminent spenders.

For fans wondering why their owners have declined to pursue big-name free agents, the presence of the San Diego Padres and the Philadelphia Phillies in this quadrant will be galling. Not long ago, both clubs were doormats. The two clubs have joined the sport’s upper crust in recent years, thanks to an infusion of spending. Peter Seidler, the late Padres owner, financed the club’s renaissance, which has led to packed houses at Petco Park. The same phenomenon is on display at Citizens Bank Park, where the Phillies have become a regular postseason entrant.

Overachievers

There is a small cluster of franchises capable of contending while avoiding high-priced free agents. Tampa Bay has set the standard for this group — there’s a reason why teams in markets both big and small have been poaching their executives for the past decade. The success of some clubs stems from geographical advantage: the Cleveland Guardians, for example, have been able to capitalize on playing in the once-weak American League Central.

The problem with this space is that it can be hard to stay there forever. The Baltimore Orioles fired manager Brandon Hyde last week after a wretched start to the season, which followed a winter in which general manager Mike Elias could not land an upper-tier arm to improve the pitching staff. Last October the Rays missed the postseason for the first time since 2018, and look bound for another losing record this year. In Milwaukee, where the Brewers have reached the postseason in six of the past seven seasons, a recent run at the top of the National League Central could be upended by the resurgent, big-market Chicago Cubs.

Stuck In The Middle

Herein reside some of the sport’s most frustrated fanbases. This group contains some of baseball’s more venerated franchises: the Cubs, the Boston Red Sox, the St. Louis Cardinals and the San Francisco Giants. They aren’t rebuilding but they aren’t exactly operating, as Boston chairman Tom Werner infamously declared heading into 2024, at “full throttle.” These teams are good enough to avoid last-place finishes, but haven’t developed talent like the overachievers have and don’t spend as the powerhouses do. Still, sometimes this group buys just enough lottery tickets: the Texas Rangers won the World Series in 2023, and the Detroit Tigers are off to a rip-roaring start in 2025.

The Basement

The basement can be a place for despair. In pitcher Paul Skenes, the Pittsburgh Pirates were gifted through the draft a generational talent. The club has done little to build around him in the present, leading to a last-place standing in the National League Central and a losing record for Skenes. What a bummer.

The good news: Life in the basement isn’t permanent. After seven losing seasons in a row, the Kansas City Royals were aggressive in the free-agent market heading into 2024, signing a pair of pitchers, Seth Lugo and Michael Wacha, who helped the club return to the postseason. The club is contending again in 2025; it helps to have superstar shortstop Bobby Witt Jr. signed to a $288.8 million contract that could keep him in Kansas City for the entirety of his career. The Athletics also added salary this past winter after several years without spending.

The bad news: The depths of the basement have never been lower. The Chicago White Sox lost 121 games in 2024, besting the benchmark for futility set by the 1962 Mets. The White Sox aren’t much better this year — but they are far better than the current edition of the Colorado Rockies, who entered Tuesday’s games on pace for 134 losses. Given the hyper-competitive nature of the National League West, Colorado might set a new record with ease.

The Angels

It may be unfair to single out the Angels. But, well, look at the plot. The franchise stands alone. No team in recent memory has spent more and achieved less. The team’s last postseason appearance came in 2014. The club wasted the prime of Mike Trout and let Ohtani depart in free agency. And its own expenditures have proved disastrous: Anthony Rendon has 3.9 wins above replacement, according to Baseball-Reference, during the first five seasons of his seven-year, $245 million deal, and he may not take another at-bat for the club.

Owner Arte Moreno regularly permits his executives to spend, although the club tends to avoid going over the luxury tax. That relative largesse has led to little winning, which makes the club an anomaly in this era.

(Illustration: Dan Goldfarb / The Athletic; Brandon Vallance / Getty Images)

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