by Sonny Ward

Created on: August 23, 2007   Last Updated: October 31, 2008

Salaries definitely do not buy a team a championship, in any sport let alone baseball. Baseball probably has biggest debate about it, because of George Steinbrenner and the New York Yankees; and being the only league without a salary cap. Yes it is true that Yankees have won three out of the last eleven World Series, with the biggest payroll in the Bigs. On the other hand, in the last five years, the Yankees have only reached the World Series once, losing to Arizona.

As far as individual contracts go, Alex Rodriguez is the tops. After signing his monstrous deal with Texas, he was never able to get the team to the World Series, and has failed to do so with the Yankees. He may be having one of his best seasons ever this year, but it is during a season where he could opt out of his contract at the end and look for a better deal, IE. more money, elsewhere.

Just because a team goes out and buys some of the best statistical players available, doesn't mean they're going to the championship game. It certainly can help the chances, but there are many other factors involved in baseball. One of them being the fact that baseball, believe it or not, is a team sport. There are nine players on the field, and they need to work together to stop the other team from scoring. Outside of that, teams need a great bullpen to get that ring. Even teams like the Yankees, will struggle to go out and buy enough all-star caliber players to fill every need on the team. If George could, then as we've seen, he would. Look at this year for instance. They have one of the best hitting teams, some of the games best starting pitchers, and one of the best relievers in history; all on paper. To start the season, the pitching was flat, the bats were silent, and they couldn't hold on to a lead. Yes, you can make the argument that A-Rod was smashing home runs left and right, but he was the only one, and they lost a lot of games still. Even now where they had a nice string of victories, critics and analysts, aren't buying into the hype. They're the highest paid team in baseball, shouldn't they be out winning every night?

The answer to that is age. Remember the Florida Marlins team that won the World Series in '03. They were an exciting group, of mostly young players, that a lot of people had never heard of. The problem with being a high salary team, it's not a lack of talent, but almost seems to be a lack of youth. Everyone loves an All-star, but it's those players that have a breakout year that make a huge difference. The Marlins have pretty much built their World Series runs with younger players that peaked on their two Series victory seasons. These are the guys that then go elsewhere to get paid big money and they can relax knowing they just signed a ridiculous contract, they bring all-star potential, but also all-star egos.

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