Statistical Analysis Project - Correlation Coefficient for Mlb Payroll Versus Number of Wins

PROJECT STATEMENT

Major League Baseball (MLB) is made up of 30 teams. For the 2011 season, the payroll for each of those teams ranges from a high of $201.689 Million for the New York Yankees to a low of $36.126 Million for the Kansas City Royals. I chose to collect data for the years 2000 through 2010 (11 seasons). Also for these years, MLB teams have a combined payroll equal to $25.253 Billion for an average payroll of $76.526 Million.

With such a wide range of team payrolls, I wanted to see if there is a correlation between these payrolls and the number of wins a team collects throughout the season.

ACTUAL DATA

The data used for this project is tabulated for each year below. Both wins and losses also include all playoff games for the respective year.

(NOTE: Y – Made Playoffs, ^ - Played In World Series, *- Won World Series)

Year | No. | Team | Payroll | Wins | Losses | Winning Pct. | Made Playoffs |

2010 | 1 | New York Yankees | $206,333,389 | 100 | 71 | 0.585 | Y |

2010 | 2 | Boston Red Sox | $162,747,333 | 89 | 73 | 0.549 |   |

2010 | 3 | Chicago Cubs | $146,859,000 | 75 | 87 | 0.463 |   |

2010 | 4 | Philadelphia Phillies | $141,927,381 | 102 | 69 | 0.596 | Y |

2010 | 5 | New York Mets | $132,701,445 | 79 | 83 | 0.488 |   |

2010 | 6 | Detroit Tigers | $122,864,929 | 81 | 81 | 0.500 |   |

2010 | 7 | Chicago White Sox | $108,273,197 | 88 | 74 | 0.543 |   |

2010 | 8 | Los Angeles Angels | $105,013,667 | 80 | 82 | 0.494 |   |

2010 | 9 | Seattle Mariners | $98,376,667 | 61 | 101 | 0.377 |   |

2010 | 10 | San Francisco Giants | $97,828,833 | 103 | 74 | 0.582 | Y^* |

2010 | 11 | Minnesota Twins | $97,559,167 | 94 | 71 | 0.570 | Y |

2010 | 12 | Los Angeles Dodgers | $94,945,517 | 80 | 82 | 0.494 |   |

2010 | 13 | St. Louis Cardinals | $93,540,753 | 86 | 76 | 0.531 |   |

2010 | 14 | Houston Astros | $92,355,500 | 76 | 86 | 0.469 |   |

2010 | 15 | Atlanta Braves | $84,423,667 | 92 | 74 | 0.554 | Y |

2010 | 16 |...