Where the money goes

Baseball Prospectus has an article up now explaining a tweak to Marginal Payroll/Marginal Wins to take into account how those last extra millions could push a team into the playoffs. It assumes that any win between 88-98 is worth more to a team because it may move it closer to the payoff or playoff money.

I'm not enough of an economist, statistician or um ... person who knows things about numbers to be able to say whether or not this is a valid metric, though the econ classes I took in college seem to point to it at least making sense in theory.

What amazed me was just how bad the Giants are under both measures; Fifth in MP/MW and third in MP/MWW. That means all but two other teams used their money wiser than the Giants. Knowing the payroll, poor decisions and poor product on the field I knew Sabean and Co. were not very efficient with the dollars, but to see just how bad was a little disconcerting.

It's sad when you realize the only positive thoughts of your favorite team arethat they could change almost everything about they way they operate.

Oh, and Tim Lincecum, too. Though that's not so sad to think about.