Baseball fans focus on championships, but the best way to judge a team's management is by its economic efficiency: how well did it turn payroll into wins? Prompted by the announcement that Joe Girardi won the NL Manager of the Year award for the Florida Marlins, who finished with a losing record but had by far the lowest payroll and an almost all-rookie lineup, I've graphed some data. Here is a chart showing number of wins in the 2006 regular season against opening day payroll:

In general more payroll does mean more wins. You can see a few outliers - the Yankees, the Red Sox, the Cubs, and the Marlins in particular. Teams above the line are overpaying for wins; below the line, getting a bargain.

But to get to the real meat, you need serious analysis. Baseball Prospetus modifies the wins and payroll down to account for the "Marginal" concept - the idea that there is an effectively unlimited pool of low-quality talent at minimum cost (where minimum = $327,000/season). Now you can really see which teams made the most and least of their money:

All data is from Baseball Prospectus.

Girardi, by the way, was rewarded for his efforts (note, though, that the actual credit should be shared between Girardi, the general manager who actually negotiates contracts and makes trades, and the Marlins scouts who selected the rookies) with a big "you're fired" sandwich. Moral of the story: results matter less than sucking up to the boss.

If a female dog is spayed before her first heat cycle, her risk of developing breast cancer is only 0.05%. If she is spayed after having only one heat cycle, her risk of breast cancer jumps to 8%. If she is spayed after her second heat cycle, that risk becomes 26% [...] Spaying a dog after her third heat cycle may reduce the risk of mammary carcinoma (breast cancer) but not appreciably. [...] Ogilvie, Moore. Managing the Veterinary Cancer Patient: a practice manual. 1995 (source)