Are the Phillies Really Cheap?

There has been a lot of talk on this site, and several other places, about whether or not the Phillies’ ownership really cares about winning and is putting up the amount of money they should to make the team better.

We’ve heard this forever, but I’ve seen very little to actually back up the claim or at least show that we are different from other MLB teams. Since we don’t write anything on this site without doing our research, I did some with the help of one our readers, “Tommy O.”

I mentioned in the Holliday/Fuentes post that we know we make significantly less ticket revenue than some other clubs, but I wasn’t sure about the other revenue. Well, Forbes.com has data for all the 30 MLB teams for the 2007 season. It shows their total revenue and also all revenue spent on player salaries. Below, I am going to rank the teams in 2 categories. The first will be “Revenue earned, but not spent on players,” and the second will be “The percentage of total revenue spent on players.” I will do them in reverse order, so #1 will be the least cheap and #30 will be the most cheap.

2007 Revenue Earned, But Not Spent on Players

1. Toronto Blue Jays, $56 million
2. Kansas City Royals, $57 million
3. Baltimore Orioles, $63 million
4. Boston Red Sox, $64 million
5. Detroit Tigers, $66 million
6. Minnesota Twins, $68 million
7. Arizona Diamondbacks, $68 million
8. Oakland Athletics, $69 million
9. Seattle Mariners, $74 million
10. New York Yankees, $74 million
11. Cincinnati Reds, $75 million
12. Milwaukee Brewers, $77 million
13. Pittsburgh Pirates, $78 million
14. Philadelphia Phillies, $79 million
15. Houston Astros, $81 million
16. Los Angeles Angels, $81 million
17. Florida Marlins, $84 million
18. Texas Rangers, $84 million
19. Chicago Cubs, $84 million
20. Chicago White Sox, $85 million
21. St. Louis Cardinals, $85 million
22. Tampa Bay Rays, $86 million
23. San Francisco Giants, $86 million
24. San Diego Padres, $87 million
25. Los Angeles Dodgers, $92 million
26. Colorado Rockies, $95 million
27. Washington Nationals, $96 million
28. Atlanta Braves, $98 million
29. Cleveland Indians, $99 million
30. New York Mets, $105 million

Analysis: You’ve got 2 teams at the top, the Orioles and the Blue Jays, who are leaving less left-over revenue in an effort to keep up with the Yanks and Red Sox. Also, you can see that the Royals, Twins and A’s aren’t really cheap teams, they just don’t have a lot of room to improve their payroll. It’s clearly interesting that the Mets are at the bottom of this pile, with $105 million in revenue not spent on players. The Phillies are right in the middle, slightly in the “less cheap” half of the list.

The Percentage of Total Revenue Spent on Players

1. New York Yankees, 77%
2. Boston Red Sox, 76%
3. Toronto Blue Jays, 65%
4. Baltimore Orioles, 62%
5. Seattle Mariners, 62%
6. Detroit Tigers, 62%
7. Chicago Cubs, 61%
8. Los Angeles Angels, 60%
9. Los Angeles Dodgers, 59%
10. Philadelphia Phillies, 59%
11. Arizona Diamondbacks, 59%
12. Houston Astros, 58%
13. Kansas City Royals, 56%
14. San Francisco Giants, 56%
15. St. Louis Cardinals, 56%
16. Chicago White Sox, 56%
17. New York Mets, 55%
18. Oakland A’s, 55%
19. Minnesota Twins, 54%
20. Cincinnati Reds, 53%
21. Milwaukee Brewers, 51%
22. Texas Rangers, 51%
23. Atlanta Braves, 51%
24. San Diego Padres, 48%
25. Cleveland Indians, 45%
26. Pittsburgh Pirates, 44%
27. Colorado Rockies, 44%
28. Tampa Bay Rays, 38%
29. Washington Nationals, 37%
30. Florida Marlins, 34%

Analysis: The Yankees and Red Sox are at the top of this list because the larger the revenue, the higher percentage of it you can spend on players and have enough left over. For instance, a team with $300 million in revenue can spend 75% of it on players and still have $75 million left over for the other stuff, but if a team with $100 million in revenue spends 75%, they will only have $25 million left over, which might not be enough for the other expenses of running a team. There are a couple teams with a high percentage at the top, a couple with a low at the bottom and a bunch with around the same in the middle. Once again, you see the Jays and Orioles pushing their limits to try to keep with the Yanks and Red Sox. You also see that the Phillies are tied for 9th on this list, putting them in the top third in terms of “least cheap.”

Final Thoughts

What this data shows me is that while the Phillies might have some wiggle room to up their payroll by $5 million or so, they can’t really make a drastic increase. The numbers on here are from 2007, and with the Phillies playoff run and increased attendance in 2007, their payroll went up about 9 million to this year, so I imagine their %’s would look very similar with the increased revenue. For the record, the raw numbers on the Phillies were $192 million in revenue, $113 million on players (includes bonuses, draft picks, traded players partial salaries, etc…, not just opening day 25-man roster).

What do you guys think?