Study shows link between payroll and wins not as big as before, but teams like Mariners still face bigger obstacles than others

Read an interesting study by Dave Studeman over at The Hardball Times that shows the correlation between team payroll and wins has dwindled to the lowest it's been historically for quite some time in baseball. Now, before any of you go planning World Series parades, it's important to take the study in its proper context and not read stuff into it that wasn't stated. The study looked at regular season wins for all teams and the payrolls they carry and compared it to previous points in the game's history. The study concludes that the correlation between wins and payroll is indeed relatively smaller and suggests some degree of random luck, but more importantly, enhanced revenue sharing under the new collective bargaining agreement reached in late 2002, is behind it. My first reaction to it was that this should make it easier for teams to compete for a playoff spot if their payrolls are relatively close to others vying for those exact same spots. In other words, what th...