Money For Nothing?

Its time for my annual look at the top 5 payrolls for the previous season and the bottom 5 owners who are so poor that they need the "luxury Tax" money from MLB to stay afloat.

TOP 5

Team Pay ($Millions)
NY Yankees 218.3
Boston Red Sox 155.4
LA Dodgers 125.6
NY Mets 120.9
Chicago Cubs 115.9

BOTTOM FEEDERS (and their "POOR" owners)

COL 61.3m (Peter Hanson Coors, Chairman of Coors Brewing Company and Adolph Coors Company. Linda G. Alvarado, sole owner of Alvarado Construction, a large commercial and industrial general contracting/site management, and design/build firm in Denver, CO, President of Palo Alto, Inc. Restaurant Company.)


PIT 51.4m (Robert Nutting. Nutting's father G. Ogden Nutting and his brother William Nutting also serve on the Pirates board of directors. Nutting and his family own Ogden Newspapers Inc. and Seven Springs Mountain Resort in Pennsylvania.)

WAS 43.4m (Theodore N. "Ted" Lerner is a real estate developer. , Lerner Enterprises is wholly owned and operated by the Lerner family. Lerner Enterprises is headed by Lerner his son, Mark Lerner, Robert Tanenbaum (son in-law), and Edward Cohen (son in-law). They are also principal owners in the Nationals. Ted Lerner is also a minority partner in the Lincoln Holdings, the corporation which owns the entirety of both the NHL Washington Capitals and the WNBA Washington Mystics and a minority of both the NBA Washington Wizards and Verizon Center.)

FLA 33.1m (Jeffrey H. Loria is an art dealer. In March 2007 Yale University announced that Loria had made a major gift to fund the construction of a new building for the History of Art department, adjacent to the Art + Architecture Building. In 1999, he bought a 35 percent interest in the Expos for $50 million. Later, Loria became the team's majority partner at 94%.
Loria sold the Expos to a partnership of the other 29 major league clubs, for $120 million. Loria bought the Marlins for $158.5 million, including a $38.5 million no-interest loan from MLB.)


TB 31.8m (Stuart L. Sternberg, retired partner at The Goldman Sachs Group Inc. and prior to that, was a partner at Spear, Leeds & Kellogg. )

Lets keep in mind that the Rockies went to the World Series with a payroll $157 million LESS than the Yankees.

So, is it REALLY the money?

George Steinbrenner used his personal fortune to build the Yankees "Evil" Empire into what it is today. The above listed bottom feeders choose not to do the same while taking George's "luxury tax" money and stick it in their pocket.

Now...who's "bad for baseball"?