Did Payroll Matter in 2020?

When it came to winning baseball games last year, payroll was not a significant factor. It’s worth noting that if we used BaseRuns standings, the correlation coefficient (r) moves up to .3, which is in line with what it was for actual wins and payroll for most of the last decade. Here’s a year-by-year look at wins and payrolls over the years….

On its face, last year’s correlation is the lowest since before baseball’s strike. As with much of 2020, the lack of a full season tends to distort the numbers and our ability to get value from them. Would the Marlins and Astros have maintained their roughly .500 trajectories, or would they have moved more toward their projected status? Looking at BaseRuns shows a significantly higher correlation between expected wins and projected payroll, and it’s likely that a full season would have resulted in a much stronger relationship, but the shortened season limits certainty.