Gutter: Who's the best at spending nothing?

Hereby creating the MLB Tired Huddled Masses Award (to also be referred to as the Cheapskate), recognizing the professional baseball team that does the most with the least.

Here’s how it works:

I’ve taken the four MLB teams with the lowest 2008 salaries in the league (according to this list published by the Associated Press):


Pittsburgh $49,365,283
Oakland $47,967,126
Tampa Bay $43,820,598
Florida $21,836,500

Then I divided each of those salaries by 162 to determine the amount each team is spending per game:

Pittsburgh $304,723.97
Oakland $296,093.37
Tamp Bay $270,497.52
Florida $134,793.21

The next step is to multiply the per-game average by the number of games played; that number will then be divided by the number of wins to date, thus creating a sort-of amount spent per win. If I see this through to the end of the season, the team who has spent the least per win will be presented with the MLB Tired Huddled Masses Award.

Are we rewarding mediocrity? No; we’re rewarding the team that achieves mediocrity for the best value.

Now then, here’s the standings in the running for the first-ever MLB Tired Huddled Masses Award (to be updated every few days, or thereabouts):

Record: 6-3
Standing: 1st in NL East
Games back: 0
Money spent per win: $202,189.82



Record: 6-4
Standing: Tied for 1st in AL West
Games back: 0
Money spent per win: $493,488.95



Record: 4-5
Standing: Tied for 4th in AL East
Games back: 2
Money spent per win: $608,619.42


Record: 3-6
Standing: 5th in NL Central
Games back: 3.5
Money spent per win: $914,171.91







That's your Buccos: spending nearly a million dollars per win through 9 games. Root, root, root for our home team; a new Pirates generation, everybody shout "Let's go Bucs!"