As MLB’s largest payrolls near World Series, will Giants spend to contend?

The Guardians are trying to follow in the footsteps of the 2003 Marlins, ranking 23rd in payroll at $107 million. Every once in a while a lower-payroll team reaches the final four, but it’s rare. The Diamondbacks, while ranking 21st in 2023, got as far as last year’s World Series before losing in five games to the Rangers, who were fourth in payroll. Fans of the San Francisco Giants remember the good ol’ days. According to Spotrac, the Giants ranked 10th in payroll this year and 12th in 2023 and 2022 and were never better than a .500 club in any of those seasons. They’ve been in the postseason once in eight years. It’s no secret that new president of baseball operations Buster Posey is an advocate of a strong farm system and developing young players, a key to the Giants’ World Series titles in 2010, 2012 and 2014, though general manager Brian Sabean supplemented those teams with key trades and free-agent signings. When I asked Giants chairman Greg Johnson whether he anticipates being top five in payroll, which had been the case before Farhan Zaidi, he said, “It depends on the players. To me, it’s about individual, smart decisions and what you need for the ballclub. You can compete with a lower payroll if you’ve got a ton of young players coming up. If you don’t, and if you have major gaps, you need to go to free agency, but free agency is not the way you’re going to win. You’ve got to develop the players.” At the same time, Johnson vowed to sign off on exceeding the CBT tax threshold and paying luxury taxes if it’s necessary to build a winner: “We will do it if we have to, and we will spend what we need to put a winning team on the field.” Unlike the NFL and NBA, MLB has no salary cap (or floor), to the owners’ dismay, and baseball’s revenue-sharing arrangements haven’t exactly diminished payroll disparity. The difference between the haves and have-nots is greater than ever, and much of that is self-imposed as some teams simply don’t try to be competitive. While it would be wonderful to assure that all 30 teams are serious about competing, union chief Tony Clark has repeatedly said the players would never agree to a salary cap, not even a floor. Any talk from owners about a floor accompanies talk about a cap. In fact, in the last round of labor negotiations, the owners proposed a $100 million floor, but it came with a $180 million ceiling — anything over would result in drastic luxury tax payouts. For the union, that was a non-starter. The A’s, obviously, are the biggest culprits at the bottom end of the disparity. Owner John Fisher hasn’t cared about his on-field product, investing hardly anything into payroll as he focused on pulling the team out of Oakland. He’s lucky he inherited a capable baseball operations department that, after consecutive 100-loss seasons, formed a roster that put up a better fight this past season, but the A’s still lost 307 games over the past three years, the worst three-year stretch in the franchise’s Oakland history. The A’s aren’t alone. Teams that don’t spend at least $100 million on payroll simply aren’t trying hard enough, and that includes the Pirates, whose payroll was lower than every team but Oakland’s because owner Bob Nutting gave up on trying. The Pirates released first baseman Rowdy Tellez in late September, four plate appearances shy of earning a $200,000 bonus — a great way for management to lose a clubhouse. On the other hand, the Padres are an example of a team that started winning after it started spending. They were in the bottom 10 in payroll in 2019 and also a last-place team. The more dollars the Padres invested, the more they won. While reaching the playoffs two of the past three years, they set franchise attendance records and turned Petco Park into one of the premier environments in the majors.