In these uncertain times, it is somehow comforting that there are some things upon which we can count — day-after-day, year-after-year – like the Pirates missing postseason play in Major League Baseball.
Those postseason games begin today and yet again the Pirates are missing. And it is a familiar reason – terminal cheapness.
MLB circa 2025 is an economic caste system. If you want to make the postseason, and compete to win the World Series once there, you have to spend huge on salary. If you just want to have a franchise, sell tickets to your fans coming to watch stars on the other teams, you go the Pirates’ cheap route.
I know, the Pirates do have a star pitcher in Paul Skenes, among the best, if not the best, in the league. Rest assured, though, that Skenes will pitch for the Pirates only until he qualifies for free agency or the Pirates make a pre-emptive trade of Skenes for a bag of magic beans.
The Pirates never will spend enough to compete, and their organization is not clever enough to overcome that (see a list of those franchises who can and have done such later in this story).
The playoff field, with the notable exception of the New York Mets, is a celebration of payroll.
The defending champion Los Angeles Dodgers are back, with their reported payroll of about $347 million, highest in the league.
The Mets, who spent a reported $340 millon this year to challenge the Dodgers, instead find themselves on the outside looking in due to a monumental collapse in the closing months of the season.
So, the No. 2 payroll didn’t make the big show. But No. 3 (New York Yankees, ($298 million), No. 4 (Philadelphia, $290 million) and No. 5 (Toronto, $254 million) are present.
Most of the field mirrors this truth. But, there are a few outfits who spent what are comparatively frugal payroll numbers and still have made it.
Begin with Milwaukee, which had an MLB-best 97 wins this season. Yes, incredibly in this era of huge payroll numbers, there was not a single 100-win team for the first time since 2014. Several teams, most notably Detroit, staggered into the playoff field on sustained stretches of futility. Even the hapless Mets almost made it.
No one saw this coming. Milwaukee’s reported payroll for 2025 was $115 million, 24th lowest in the game and about one-third of what the Dodgers spent. For even more perspective, the current Brewers owner bought the FRANCHISE in 2005 for $223 million, less than twice what he spent just this season in payroll.
The Cincinnati Reds, at $116 million are another playoff bargain. There must be something in the Ohio water because it is Cleveland, with a $99.6 million payroll, that provides the salary floor among the 2025 playoff field.
The Pirates are credited (blamed?) with spending just $90 million in 2025.
I don’t expect Milwaukee (despite that record), Cincinnati or Cleveland to go deep into postseason play. But, I do celebrate them for making it.
Those three bargain basement teams have weaknessess that show up in a playoff series. Cincinnati and Cleveland, for example, have an abundance of pitching and severe deficits in terms of offense.
In the end, a big-money franchise will win the World Series, another dependable outcome.
Sam Ross Jr's site 