NEW YORK, NEW YORK – OCTOBER 30: The Los Angeles Dodgers pose on the field after defeating the New York Yankees 7-6 in game 5 to win the 2024 World Series at Yankee Stadium on October 30, 2024 in the Bronx borough of New York City. (Photo by Elsa/Getty Images)

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The MLB playoffs are underway, and once again, high spending has not guaranteed postseason success for the New York Mets. With a payroll exceeding $340 million, the Mets will not be participating in October baseball. They are the only team with a total payroll above $250 million to miss the playoffs this season. At the other end of the financial spectrum, the Cleveland Guardians clinched the AL Central while spending less than $100 million. This sharp contrast highlights a long-standing question in Major League Baseball: to what extent does payroll influence a team’s chances of reaching the postseason?

To answer this, I built a model to estimate the probability of making the playoffs based on team payroll. The goal is not only to measure the strength of the relationship between spending and success, but also to identify potential thresholds where additional payroll begins to yield diminishing returns. With the expanded playoff format and increasing payrolls, understanding this relationship is more relevant than ever.

MLB Payroll Data

I used payroll data from Spotrac and limited the analysis to the current 12-team playoff era (2022 to present) and adjusted all monetary figures to 2025 U.S. dollars for inflation consistency. Since 2022, the median team payroll has risen from $137.5 million to $162.0 million, reflecting a steady year-over-year increase in league-wide spending. While the overall distribution of payrolls has remained relatively consistent, the data also reveals persistent disparities between the highest- and lowest-spending teams.

This disparity becomes even more evident when payroll is aggregated by division. Since 2022, total spending has grown across the league, but not uniformly. Coastal divisions have driven much of the increase, while teams in the Central divisions have maintained far more conservative budgets.

The NL West stands out as the highest-spending division in 2025, with total payroll exceeding $1.05 billion. That figure represents a sharp rise from roughly $800 million in 2022, reflecting sustained investment from teams such as the Dodgers and Padres. The NL East has also maintained a strong financial position, surpassing $1.03 billion in 2025 after four consecutive years of steady growth. Meanwhile, the AL East has seen the most dramatic year-over-year increase. Its total payroll rose from approximately $720 million in 2022 to over $1 billion by 2025, marking a gain of more than 40 percent.

The AL West follows with moderate increases, driven by teams like the Rangers and Astros, though the growth has been less consistent. In contrast, both Central divisions have remained on the lower end of the payroll spectrum. The AL Central has posted the lowest total payroll each year, with only modest growth over the four-year period. The NL Central showed some expansion through 2024 but declined slightly in 2025, falling to just over $660 million.

This widening gap in divisional spending reflects broader structural differences in how teams approach roster construction and financial risk. Whether these spending patterns correlate with postseason success is a question worth exploring further, particularly as the playoff field expands and the cost of contention rises.

Predicting MLB Playoffs Odds By Payroll

To quantify the relationship between team spending and postseason outcomes, I trained a logistic regression model using a single input: total team payroll, adjusted to 2025 dollars. The model evaluates how likely a team is to make the playoffs based solely on its spending level, without accounting for other variables like roster composition, injuries, or division strength. Despite its simplicity, the model performs reasonably well, classifying outcomes at 79% accuracy.

As shown in the chart above, each gray dot represents an individual team-season, with dots clustered at the top (playoff teams) or bottom (non-playoff teams) of the graph. The blue curve traces the model’s predicted probability of making the playoffs at each payroll level.

The shape of the curve confirms what many already suspect: teams that spend more have a higher statistical chance of reaching the postseason. But perhaps more interesting is the model’s gradient. Even at the high end of the payroll spectrum (teams spending over $300 million) the model does not approach a 100% probability. Conversely, teams with payrolls below $100 million are not at 0%. This highlights the probabilistic nature of baseball outcomes and suggests that payroll buys leverage, not guarantees.

The model also provides an empirical foundation for evaluating front office efficiency. For example, a team spending $180 million might have an expected playoff probability of 50 percent. A team with similar spending but consistent playoff appearances could be considered an outperformer. Conversely, teams failing to meet the probabilistic expectations implied by their payroll levels raise questions about strategic execution and return on investment.

High Payrolls Do Not Guarantee MLB Playoffs Appearance

This model confirms a truth that even the league’s biggest spenders are beginning to confront: money improves the odds of making the MLB Playoffs, but it doesn’t guarantee results. In 2020, shortly after purchasing the New York Mets, owner Steve Cohen stated, “If I don’t win a World Series in the next three to five years — I would consider that slightly disappointing.” Since then, the Mets have posted some of the highest payrolls in MLB history, including more than $340 million in 2025, only to miss the playoffs entirely. That outcome aligns with what the model reveals: while payroll is positively correlated with MLB playoff probability, it is far from deterministic. Winning in today’s MLB still requires more than just financial firepower. It demands execution, efficiency, and often, a margin of luck that no payroll can buy.