Can't buy me love (or can you?)

Baseball, more than other major pro sports, is filled with whiney ownership complaining about small market revenues and an inability to compete. And yet almost every year one (or more) team(s) blows the market/payroll/revenue theory all to hell either by losing with a big payroll or winning with a small one. (It's one of the reasons that I personally don't think fans should ever finance stadiums with taxes, but that's a whole other blog.)

The Florida Marlins disproved the complaint twice, with World Series wins in 1999 and 2003. The second championship cost the club just $48.75 million. More recently, the Rockies made it to last year's World Series on just $54.4 million.

And, as is the case in so many years, the Yankees this year are one of the teams proving the converse, that payroll doesn't equal championships. The team hasn't won a World Series since its payroll topped $100 million. Does its $209 million payroll for 2008 mean that the club is two times less likely to win it all?

This year the team with the largest payroll increase over last year: Detroit, giving them the league's third highest payroll. Silly Tigers, 64-67 isn't getting it done when it's costing you $137.7 million. Two other teams clearly overpaying for wins – Atlanta and Seattle.

This year's payroll surprise winners are the Tampa Bay Rays ($43.8 million) and the Minnesota Twins ($56.9 million) – although the Twins aren't really much of a surprise because they seem to compete most seasons. They're just 1 game behind – but $62 million ahead of – the White Sox. The Marlins, sporting the league's lowest payroll, are competing in the NL East, yet the team salary is less than half that of the Rays, MLB's second lowest payroll.

Here are the total payroll figures for all 30 MLB teams for 2008 (as reported by USAToday).

Team	Total payroll
New York Yankees	$ 209,081,577
New York Mets	$ 137,793,376
Detroit Tigers	$ 137,685,196
Boston Red Sox	$ 133,390,035
Chicago White Sox	$ 121,189,332
Los Angeles Angels	$ 119,216,333
Los Angeles Dodgers	$ 118,588,536
Chicago Cubs	$ 118,345,833
Seattle Mariners	$ 117,666,482
Atlanta Braves	$ 102,365,683
St. Louis Cardinals	$ 99,624,449
Philadelphia Phillies	$ 98,269,880
Toronto Blue Jays	$ 97,793,900
Houston Astros	$ 88,930,414
Milwaukee Brewers	$ 80,937,499
Cleveland Indians	$ 78,970,066
San Francisco Giants	$ 76,594,500
Cincinnati Reds	$ 74,117,695
San Diego Padres	$ 73,677,616
Colorado Rockies	$ 68,655,500
Texas Rangers	$ 67,712,326
Baltimore Orioles	$ 67,196,246
Arizona Diamondbacks	$ 66,202,712
Kansas City Royals	$ 58,245,500
Minnesota Twins	$ 56,932,766
Washington Nationals	$ 54,961,000
Pittsburgh Pirates	$ 48,689,783
Oakland Athletics	$ 47,967,126
Tampa Bay Rays	$ 43,820,597
Florida Marlins	$ 21,811,500