The Cleveland Guardians have a long history of trying to compete with a low payroll.
Sometimes it’s worked, and sometimes it hasn’t.
It certainly has worked with Stephen Vogt as their manager.
As pointed out by Terry Pluto of Cleveland.com, the Guardians have made the playoffs in consecutive years despite having one of the lowest payrolls in the game.
That defies the notion of teams needing to spend big bucks to be competitive.
“This season, the final four in the MLB playoffs consists of two teams in the top five in payroll: the [Los Angeles] Dodgers and Toronto. Seattle is No. 16 and Milwaukee is No. 23. The Guardians were No. 25 in payroll. They lost in the wild card series to Detroit, which ranked No. 17 in payroll. In 2024, the Guardians were in the final four with the [New York] Yankees, Dodgers and [New York] Mets. They were the only small-market team. The baseball union will use that to show there is some type of parity. One or two teams aren’t dominating. But the perception by MLB fans in smaller markets is, ‘We have no chance because of payroll,'” Pluto wrote.
Even if true, just making the playoffs is not enough.
While there will always be outliers with teams making the postseason despite a lack of big salaries, the past decade in the National League reveals that a higher payroll is likely to dominate.
Of course, that’s not on the Dodgers, but perhaps on some other teams.
The Dodgers wouldn’t be able to acquire every player they want if other teams were willing to spend to their level as well.
More than a salary cap, baseball arguably needs a salary floor.
There’s no real financial incentive to compete at the highest level and invest in a team if the owner can still turn a profit or limit their monetary losses.
The Guardians will likely never be able to compete financially with bigger markets, and as such, it makes sense that they want to limit their spending.
But that doesn’t mean that they shouldn’t try to keep up if they’re able.
NEXT: Analyst Raises 'Critical Question' About Guardians' Offense
