One Billion Dollars
There has been a lot of talk lately about how the New York Yankees have blown over one billion dollars since their last championship. I did some research to discover that the Yankees are not alone; eight other teams have also spent upwards of ten digits in their respective quests to attain baseball’s crown. It took more than seven years for them to spend that billion dollars, of course.
Data for teams whose drought stretched into the Reserve Clause era were not readily available. My method for extrapolating team payrolls for the years prior to 1977 was to take the average player salary of $81,565 in 1965 (the earliest year in Michael J. Haupert’s The Economic History of Major League Baseball) and apply an inflation rate of 4%. That provided the basis for an average player salary from 1908 to 1964. I then multiplied the average player salary by 30 to represent a typical club’s payroll.
| Money Spent During Championship Droughts | |||
| Team | Founded and World Series, if any |
Most Recent Drought | Payroll During Drought |
| Arizona Diamondbacks | 1998 2001 |
6 years | $427,338,687 |
| Atlanta Braves (Boston, Milwaukee) |
1876 1914, 1957, 1995 |
12 years | $961,489,711 |
| Baltimore Orioles | 1901 1966, 1970, 1983 |
24 years | $1,046,357,141 |
| Boston Red Sox | 1901 1903, 1912, 1915, 1916, 1918, 2004 |
3 years | $386,631,163 |
| Chicago Cubs | 1876 1907, 1908 |
99 years | $1,231,387,281 |
| Chicago White Sox | 1901 1906, 1917, 2005 |
2 years | $211,422,500 |
| Cincinnati Reds | 1882 1919, 1940, 1975, 1976, 1990 |
17 years | $767,345,316 |
| Cleveland Indians | 1901 1920, 1948 |
59 years | $995,322,744 |
| Colorado Rockies | 1993 | 14 years | $708,712,364 |
| Detroit Tigers | 1901 1935, 1945, 1968, 1984 |
23 years | $854,274,547 |
| Florida Marlins | 1993 1997, 2003 |
4 years | $148,057,376 |
| Houston Astros | 1962 | 45 years | $1,037,322,914 |
| Kansas City Royals | 1969 1985 |
22 years | $692,979,761 |
| Los Angeles Angels | 1961 2002 |
5 years | $490,014,989 |
| Los Angeles Dodgers (Brooklyn) |
1884 1955, 1959, 1963, 1965, 1981, 1988 |
19 years | $1,205,694,674 |
| Milwaukee Brewers (Seattle Pilots) |
1969 | 38 years | $757,729,207 |
| Minnesota Twins (Washington Senators) |
1901 1987, 1991 |
16 years | $549,612,77 |
| New York Mets | 1962 1969, 1986 |
21 years | $1,223,870,695 |
| New York Yankees (Baltimore Orioles) |
1901 1923, 1927, 1928, 1932, 1936, 1937, 1938, 1939, 1941, 1943, 1947, 1949, 1950, 1951, 1952, 1953, 1956, 1958, 1961, 1962, 1977, 1978, 1996, 1998, 1999, 2000 |
7 years | $1,167,768,431 |
| Oakland Athletics (Kansas City, Philadelphia) |
1901 1910, 1911, 1913, 1929, 1930, 1972, 1973, 1974, 1989 |
18 years | $696,452,534 |
| Philadelphia Phillies | 1883 1980 |
17 years | $881,694,379 |
| Pittsburgh Pirates | 1882 1979 |
28 years | $624,286,058 |
| San Diego Padres | 1969 | 38 years | $836,264,287 |
| San Francisco Giants (New York) |
1883 1905, 1921, 1922, 1933, 1954 |
53 years | $1,141,895,138 |
| Seattle Mariners | 1977 | 30 years | $1,041,126,766 |
| St. Louis Cardinals | 1882 1926, 1931, 1934, 1942, 1944, 1946, 1964, 1967, 1982, 2006 |
1 year | $90,286,823 |
| Tampa Bay Devil Rays | 1998 | 9 years | $357,305,111 |
| Texas Rangers (Washington Senators) | 1961 | 46 years | $1,137,764,366 |
| Toronto Blue Jays | 1977 1992, 1993 |
14 years | $698,954,506 |
| Washington Nationals (Expos) | 1969 | 38 years | $644,907,269 |
| Payroll data from 1988 to the present from USAToday, 1977 to 1987 from The Business of Baseball, and extrapolated payrolls from prior to 1977 from The Economic History of Major League Baseball. | |||
