It's bad enough that the Red Sox are sitting home Wednesday night while the American League wild-card gets played 3,000 miles away.
But the fact that the game is between the Tampa Bay Rays and Oakland A's only makes it that much worse.
While the Red Sox spent approximately $240 million and still finished in third place in their division with the seventh-highest win total in the league, the Rays, with the game's smallest payroll ($63.4 million, according to Spotrac.com) finished eight games ahead of the AL East.
Meanwhile, the A's, with the 25th-ranked payroll ($92.8 million), won 13 more games than the Sox.
You could combine the payrolls of the Rays and A's (for a total player cost of $166.2 million) and still be just bit over two-thirds of the Red Sox payroll for 2019.
None of which is to suggest that no correlation exists between payroll size and on-field performance. Major League Baseball is littered with teams who didn't spend and got predictable results. The teams with the 27th (Pittsburgh), 28th (Baltimore) and 29th (Miami) ranked payrolls each finished last in the division.
Of the 10 bottom teams in payroll -- the lower third in the game -- only three (Arizona, Oakland and Tampa Bay) even finished with winning records.
So, perhaps the best way to link payroll and performance is to note that while spending big doesn't guarantee success, not spending makes it highly unlikely your season will end well.
Unless, that is, you spend smartly, which both the Rays and A's have done.
Comparing the big-market Red Sox with the small-market Rays and A's is risky business, as it's akin to comparing economic apples and oranges.
The expectations are greatly different between the teams, and so, too, are the achievements. While the Red Sox have four World Series since 2004, the Rays have never won a title (they've appeared in just one World Series in their history) and the A's last one came 1989.
Moreover, this trip to the postseason is the first for the Rays since 2013 (when they were ousted in the ALDS by the Red Sox), though they did win 90 games last season. And while the A's have qualified for the postseason four times in the last eight years, they haven't won a postseason series since 2006.
Still, it's hard not to admire the efficiency with which the A's and Rays operate.
- The Red Sox had four players (David Price, J.D. Martinez, Rick Porcello and Mookie Betts) making $20 million or more on their 2019 payroll; the A's and Rays had none.
- The Sox had an additional four players making eight-figure salaries ($10 million or more); the A's (Khris Davis, $16.75 million) and Rays (Charlie Morton, $15 million) had one each. (The A's also had starter Tanner Roark earning $10 million but he was trade-deadline acquisition and the Cincinnati Reds absorbed some of his remaining salary).
