In my Business Statistics class a couple guys did a project on whether or not high payrolls = better teams. They used Billy Bean's method of selecting players by "scoring average" and low salary to choose their team. Without selecting any players from the A's (as the most efficient team) or the Yankees (highest payroll), they chose a team with a payroll of just over $42 million, and about $31 mill. of that was positional players, and although they didn't give the pitchers' stats, their positional players totalled 331 homeruns for the year, and had a 15.1 scoring average, compared to the Yankees 9.8. Granted, these stats wouldn't be able to hold up as much because these were all everyday players, but that's still a big gap.
I was shocked at some of the guys with low salaries, Albert Pujols made only $900,000 last year according to their info. I forgot what they said Roy Halladay made, but it was next to nothing. Their payroll could've been even lower, but one of the guys insisted on taking Todd Helton at $10 mill. a year lol
pujols is coming into his last year of his first contract...that # will be very different come his next contract
Yeah, the vast majority of all the guys were young and on their first contract. He will be a very wealthy man soon.