Yes, you will be. You and the Lakers.

As fans get smarter, the idea that team payroll are directly proportional to win totals is going out of style. MSM might find it easy to sell articles and grab ratings by making this correlation and exploit black-and-white storytelling for big market and high profile teams, but how many readers of this website actually think even a $500M payroll will guarantee a trip to the World Series?

how many readers of this website actually think even a $500M payroll will guarantee a trip to the World Series?

World series? No. But it should guarantee a trip to the playoffs. Heck, $250M should.

Have they taken into account the Mattingly curse?
Yankees get to the World Series in 1981.
Don Mattingly plays his rookie year in 1982.
Don Mattingly plays his final year in 1995.
Yankees get to their first World Series since 1981 . . in 1996.
. .
Yankees get to the World Series in 2003
Don Mattingly becomes a yankee coach in 2004
Don Mattingly remains a yankee coach through the 2007 season.
Yankees get to their first World Series since 2003 in . . 2009.

A $500M budget would be nice and easy to manage as a GM, you could pay all starters $30M per head and still have $80M to spend on the bullpen and bench.

World series? No. But it should guarantee a trip to the playoffs. Heck, $250M should.

Rational fans would consider that the bar for the Dodgers to meet expectations this season. But why do I think Mattingly isn't talking about simply getting into the playoffs?

I always figured you can't buy a winner, but you sure as hell can buy a contender. The rest is up to the players.

but how many readers of this website actually think even a $500M payroll will guarantee a trip to the World Series?

Intangibles baby! Money can't buy that...

Interesting thought experiment. You are a new expansion team with a $500M annual budget. How long does it take you to make the playoffs? Win 100 games?

Hamilton, Upton, Bourn is a nice outfield. Some good starting pitchers out there. Maybe you could do it in a year.

With a $500M budget, you could build a championship caliber club almost immediately. What holes you couldn't fill via free agency, you'd buy via trade.

With a $500M budget, you could build a championship caliber club almost immediately. What holes you couldn't fill via free agency, you'd buy via trade.

Or in the NBA you could spend it on the refs. :D

Interesting thought experiment. You are a new expansion team with a $500M annual budget. How long does it take you to make the playoffs? Win 100 games?

The Marlins did it for $70 million in 2.5 years in 1995. They went from a $37 million payroll in 1995 (Yankees were at $59 million) to a $70 million payroll in 1997 (Yankees were at $90 million). So I would guess that if you went up to $260 million in 2012, that would put you at 90-95 wins, no problem. It's not just about free agency, it's also about taking on other teams' ill-advised contracts to good players .

Interesting thought experiment. You are a new expansion team with a $500M annual budget. How long does it take you to make the playoffs? Win 100 games?

The Diamondbacks did just that; 100 wins and a playoff berth in their second year of existence and they were 8th in MLB in payroll.

One of the benefits such an approach would have in the short term is that you aren't going to have bad contracts yet. For all the complaining we love to do about long deals the first few years of these megadeals generally work out pretty well. A team with a $500 million payroll would probably be able to avoid that by offering ridiculous one or two year deals (40-50 per year). You'd never miss out on the top free agent and would avoid the dreaded out years of a long term contract.