FanHouse

The people in the ad-sales department at TBS might disagree, but I'll say it right now, having Arizona and Colorado reach the NLCS is a great thing for baseball. It wasn't long ago that our own Pat Lackey lamented the MLB draft model, saying bad teams didn't have the money to draft the best players. To further Pat's thoughts, small market teams don't have the finances to bid for the highest priced free agents, nor do they have the ability to assume large contracts in salary dumps. So when the Diamondbacks and Rockies are two of the four remaining teams in the playoffs, along with the Indians, it proves once again that a team doesn't need a high payroll to succeed in baseball.

Before you jump the gun on me, I'm not arguing that payrolls are irrelevant; the ability to spend money helps organizations field a competitive team, but it does not ensure success. According to USA Today, the Diamondbacks have the 5th lowest payroll in baseball, the Rockies 6th, and Cleveland the 8th. The 7th lowest payroll team in baseball, the Padres, lost a playoff game with the Rockies for the wild card. While many of the teams atop the 2007 payroll list had good records, and the bottom four teams had horrible records, we are now seeing visual proof that parity indeed exists in baseball.

The bottom line is that many of us probably didn't give the Rockies a Stanford's chance in heck to make the playoffs, much less World Series, when they broke Spring Training. As proof, one sportsbook had the Rockies at 90:1, Diamondbacks at 50:1, and the Indians at 28:1 to be the last team standing in October. The fact that the Diamondbacks and Rockies are playing for the National League pennant reassures fans everywhere that their team always has a chance to succeed, regardless of what payroll and pundits say. Additionally, more than ever, baseball has become a general manager's game, where wits outweigh deep pockets.