little correlation between salaries and winning in baseball this year

From Matthew Futterman in the WSJ...

After nearly two decades of class struggle between its richest and poorest teams, and eight years since a wholesale renovation of its economic system, Major League Baseball is on the verge of a historic milestone.

If the current standings hold up through the end of the season, this will be the first year in the game's modern history—the period since the 1994 players' strike—when the amount of money a ballclub pays its players bears almost no relationship with how many games it won.

According to estimated payroll figures updated throughout the season, the correlation between a team's player payroll and its winning percentage is 0.14, a number that makes the relationship almost statistically irrelevant. That figure is 67% below last year's mark and is easily the lowest since the strike.

This outcome represents a stark reversal from the state of affairs a decade ago. In 1998, the correlation between payrolls and wins was 0.71, a figure that suggests a strong and significant tie. And in the 1999 season, when the correlation was 0.5, all eight teams that reached baseball's playoffs were among the 10 top spenders....

If the 2010 season had ended Wednesday night, however, only three of the 10 richest teams would make the playoffs, and four postseason teams—the San Diego Padres, Tampa Bay Rays, Cincinnati Reds and Texas Rangers—would have climbed into that exalted position from the bottom half of the spending list....

Last year, the poorest teams collected about $40 million each in revenue sharing, up from no more than $20 million in 2001. Many small-revenue teams also have boosted their income by building new ballparks. And baseball's central fund, which distributes money to all clubs, gave out some $40 million to each team last year compared with just $13 million in 1999.

Some teams have thrived by making significant investments in other areas besides payroll—a list that includes scouting, solid trades, player development and the amateur draft....