The Official 2005 New York Yankees Thread - Kill all Red Sox and Twins

[Arpikarhu]

2004 MLB Team Payrolls
Based Upon 2004 Season as of April 9, 2004
1 New York Yankees $184,193,950
2 Boston Red Sox $127,298,500
3 Anaheim Angels $100,534,667
4 New York Mets $96,660,970
5 Philadelphia Phillies $93,219,167

If spending money means making the playoffs than these 5 should have been in the playoffs last year. But only the top 3 were. With the bottom two finishing no where near the wild card with the Phillies and Mets being 10 and 25 games respectively behind the Braves(#8 in payroll $90,182,500) in their division and 8 and 21 respectively behind the wild card Astros (#12 in payroll with $75,397,000). Not to mention that in terms of wins and losses both teams were also behind the Twins (#19 in payroll with $53,585,000) who had the same record as the Astros. Money is very imporatant but the spending thereof is of even greater importance. I wish people would stop talking about the payrolls because the team that spends the most hasn't won for the last 4 years and the team that is second, third, and fourth in spending in 2003 didn't make the playoffs and two of them (Mets and Rangers) finished last in their respective divisions.

I agree that 200+ mil payroll is a little rediculous considering there are like 5 teams still under $50 mil but it's a business and if you're small market teams can't make enough money to compete with the higher salery teams then you have two choices really...1 - change venue ala the Expos or 2 - bulid a strong talent base for as little as possible ala Oakland the last few years. Otherwise you're simply going to always be the Brewers.

Give the Mets another $90 million and put them on the same playing field as the Yanks and then we can talk.

$90 million should be enough to buy a bullpen.

the mets have the money, they just choose not to spend it on the team. dont blame the yankees for playing by the rules. blame the mets organization who is more concerned with lining their pockets rather than fielding a winning team for the fans.