The Province

Dollars can mean wins for teams

Fans left wondering why Blue Jays prefer to spend like a salary-capped, small-market squad

- Scott Stinson

When the Toronto Blue Jays traded first baseman Adam Lind last month, it was variously described as a payroll-trimming move that would give the team flexibilit­y to reconstruc­t its roster in the following weeks. General manager Alex Anthopoulo­s used the term “flexibilit­y” more than half a dozen times in a brief conference call with reporters.

And so it has come to pass. In the month since, Anthopoulo­s has signed free-agent catcher Russell Martin and traded for infielder Josh Donaldson and outfielder Michael Saunders, reshaping the roster in a manner that echoes his 2012 tear down, but without the fanfare.

With baseball’s winter meetings set to begin in San Diego Monday, no one doubts that Anthopoulo­s has more deals to be made. He still needs a second baseman and probably another outfielder. Plus he still has some payroll flexibilit­y — the Martin deal was back-loaded so that the bulk of his money will arrive when other high-priced Jays come off the books.

What never gets fully explained, though, is why the general manager of the Jays needs to preserve payroll flexibilit­y. The answer, of course, is that the team’s owners require it of him. Though Anthopoulo­s has always been careful to avoid saying that he operates with a payroll limit, it is clear that one exists. “Our payroll is fine,” he will say to a question about whether it can be increased. Meanwhile, he has to get creative to save dollars, whether with the structure of the Martin deal or the possibilit­y last off-season that some Jays players would have restructur­ed their contracts to free up money for free-agent pitcher Ervin Santana.

The Blue Jays behave like a salary-cap team in a sport that doesn’t have one — but it’s the only one of the major sports that doesn’t have a punitive cap or payroll tax, which is perhaps why the clamour for the Jays to spend more isn’t particular­ly loud. We are kind of used to teams that are stuck to their budgets.

But the Jays really need not be a budget team. They are, depending on how you want to define market size, playing in one of the biggest markets in North America, fourth by some measures, seventh by others. The Jays are owned by a corporatio­n that nets more than a billion dollars in annual profits. They play in a stadium that they own, built largely with public money and essentiall­y bought from the remainder bin. And even though they have crept back into the top 10 of major league payrolls, there is still a chasm between them and the serious big spenders. Beyond all that, there’s this: becoming a playoff team again, after 22 years in the wilderness, is the best way for the Jays to increase their revenue base and dramatical­ly so.

In 1993, the last time the Blue Jays made the playoffs, they had the highest payroll in baseball, at $45 million. They were among the salary leaders for another two seasons, but in 1996 the payroll dropped to $28 million, not long after team owner Labatt was purchased by Belgian giant Interbrew. The Jays’ payroll was decoupled from the path travelled by the sport’s biggest spenders, and it has never come close since.

Though it climbed back upward at times, two major payroll reductions — in 2003 and 2010, both under Rogers ownership — put Toronto so far behind the league’s big-spending teams that even with the major payroll bump in 2012 the Jays still spend well behind some of their big-market rivals. Even with a 2014 payroll of $129 million, Toronto would have to spend another $60 million just to match the average of the five highest-spending teams.

While spending on its own is no guarantee of success, there is no doubt that it helps. Though there is no statistica­lly significan­t correlatio­n between dollars and wins in hockey, basketball or football, it accounts for about 22 per cent of the variation in team win percentage in baseball, says Andrew Zimbalist, a professor at Smith College in Massachuse­tts, who has studied a wealth of sports-economics issues. Wins are also correlated to dollars in another way: teams that win more make more money. The impact of wins on revenues is strongest, Zimbalist says, when a team is climbing between a .520- and .570win percentage — that is, the difference between a good team and one that is in serious playoff contention. “Once you get above that, and it’s just a matter of what playoff seed you get, the impact (of wins on dollars earned) drops off,” Zimbalist says. “But between .520 and .570 there’s a very large impact.” Toronto’s win percentage last year was .512.

You don’t always get a return from investing money in payroll, Zimbalist notes, but as for the maxim that you can spend money to make money, “there is truth to it” in baseball.

Toronto’s division rivals certainly seem to believe it. As Anthopoulo­s has made his cagey winter moves, the New York Yankees and Boston Red Sox have been their usual spendthrif­t selves. Boston gave $95 million to Giants infielder Pablo Sandoval and another $88 million to the Dodgers’ Hanley Ramirez, despite having a 2014 payroll that was close to $160 million. The Yankees spent $36 million on reliever Andrew Miller, who might not even be their closer. They had a payroll last year of $233 million, so a $9-million-a-year setup man makes a weird kind of sense.

There are red flags with those deals, but they show the lengths to which big-market teams will go to give themselves the best chance at winning. It might be wasted money, but it’s just that: money. The Blue Jays, meanwhile, require Anthopoulo­s to build a contender with obvious payroll constraint­s. It forces him to work with a higher degree of difficulty.

In baseball, there’s no bonus trophy for getting more wins per dollar than your division rivals. Too bad, that, because it’s one the Jays might win.

 ?? — THE CANADIAN PRESS FILES ?? Blue Jays newly-signed catcher Russell Martin, left, and general manager Alex Anthopoulo­s pose for the cameras as they speak to the media during a recent news conference in Toronto. Free agent signings have been rare for the Toronto team.
— THE CANADIAN PRESS FILES Blue Jays newly-signed catcher Russell Martin, left, and general manager Alex Anthopoulo­s pose for the cameras as they speak to the media during a recent news conference in Toronto. Free agent signings have been rare for the Toronto team.
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