Can money buy a World Series? Recent history says it sure helps heading into MLB salary cap uncertainty

Want to win in Major League Baseball?

Perhaps the most integral ingredient in that recipe has been money. Lots of it.

Of the 10 most recent World Series champions, eight have ranked in the top 10 in MLB in tax payroll, five have ranked in the top five and three have ranked first — the 2025 Dodgers ($417.3 million), the 2024 Dodgers ($353 million) and the 2018 Red Sox ($239.5 million) — according to Spotrac.

The outliers? In 2021, Atlanta’s $172.6 million tax payroll ranked 13th in MLB. The only World Series champion in the past decade to rank outside the top half of MLB in tax payroll is the 2017 Astros at $140.5 million.

“As we’ve looked at it through the modern era, there’s a high correlation of revenue to spend to success,” said Robert Boland, a former player agent and a sports law professor at Seton Hall Law School, where he teaches a course in labor relations in sports.

He added that an even greater statistical correlation exists between revenue and making the playoffs.

Of the 10 most recent teams to lose in the World Series, seven ranked in the top 10 in MLB in tax payroll and six ranked in the top five. Only three teams outside the top half of MLB in tax payroll won pennants in the past 10 years: the 2023 Diamondbacks (19th), the 2020 Rays (27th) and Cleveland in 2016 (21st).

The system, of course, could change as the current collective bargaining agreement is set to expire on Dec. 1. Many expect a lockout to follow and potentially disrupt the 2027 season.

Arguably the biggest point of contention in the labor negotiations has been MLB’s proposed salary cap and floor system, with a cap of $245.3 million and a floor of $171.2 million. According to Spotrac’s data on MLB’s 2026 tax payrolls, nine teams — including the Mets and Yankees — are above the proposed cap and would have to shed money. Twelve teams are below the proposed floor and would need to spend more.

Boland noted that under the current system, players receive less than 50% (about 48%) of the league’s revenue. That split would become 50-50 under MLB’s proposal.

“I think there’s a lot to lose if they don’t play, particularly coming off several good years, at least a couple good years,” he said. “And one of the things is, would [a salary cap and floor] make the game and the sport more competitive? And you think it would, or you’d hope it would.”

Ironically, just as things may change, the teams atop the standings in both leagues — the MLB-best Brewers in the National League and the American League-best Rays — are franchises doing more with less. Milwaukee’s $153,575,463 tax payroll is the 19th-highest in the sport, and Tampa Bay’s $114,118,757 tax payroll is the fourth-lowest.

Cleveland, which is one game ahead of the White Sox in the AL Central, made the postseason in seven of the previous 10 years. It ranked among the league’s 20 highest tax payrolls just twice — and never higher than 16th — in that span.

But Boland said the success of certain small-market teams doesn’t surprise him because those clubs have “unique strategies on retaining and signing players.” Having the right people in charge making sound decisions matters immensely, too.

“The energy in baseball has always been for the top earning teams not to want to agree to [a cap],” Boland said. “They and the union, whether they’ve been — I don’t know if they’ve been in agreement — but ultimately they have been on the same side of resisting a cap. And the smaller teams have resisted a floor.”

Both sides will continue to fight over the issue of having a cap and floor, and MLB’s argument for that centers on how it will improve competition. The top-spending Dodgers’ tax payroll this year is $347,040,863 higher than that of the Marlins, whose tax payroll is the lowest in MLB.

“It defies human experience to ask a fan to think that the bottom end of that gap has the same opportunity to win as the top,” MLB commissioner Rob Manfred said in July.

MLB Players Association interim executive director Bruce Meyer vehemently opposes the idea of a cap. He called MLB out for its “propaganda arm” in an Aug. 27 statement.

“Their latest efforts to establish an artificial free agency window, subject to a salary cap, would reduce player leverage and create a game of musical chairs pitting player vs. player,” he said in the statement. “Any suggestion that the only way to limit roster churn or incentivize earlier free agent signings is with a salary cap is entirely unserious.”

Only time will tell what the new system will look like. But in recent years, in terms of on-field success, cash has remained king.