Relationships between MLB Standings

and Metropolitan Economy

By Mark Difiore and Justin Kennedy

Quant Methods
12.14.13

For this research project, the topic was to compare the relationship
between the economies of a city with the success of the cities baseball
team. This assumed that cities with greater economies would have a
more successful baseball team. The other variables chosen to compare
were losses, salary cap, average payroll, city population, and
unemployment rate. It was assumed that these variables would play a
factor into the success of the cities baseball team.
Data was collected from five different sources to compare and
collect results for our research. The first data source used came from the
Bureau of Labor Statistics, and we used this source to collect the cities
GMP, gross metropolitan product. The report listed the top 100 cities in
the United States and ranked them from highest GMP to lowest GMP.
Since the last census collected was in 2010, the data for the cities GMP
is from the year 2010. The second source that was used to gather data
was from the MLB website. There the data was collected for the wins
and losses for each team from the 2013 season. The next step in the
process was correlating the wins of the team to the cities GMP to get a
visual of how the data compared to the hypothesis.
The null hypothesis is that there is no difference between the
success of a baseball team and the citys economy. The research
hypothesis is that cities with a higher economy would have a more

successful baseball team. The dependent variable will gives results that
show if the qualities of the city have an impact on the success of a
baseball team. The independent variables were taken and ran multiple
tests in SPSS to compile comparable data. These results will give the
information to either reject or support the research hypothesis. If the
research hypothesis is supported then it can be stated that the economy
of a city has an effect on the success of the baseball team.
The hypothesis before constructing the analysis is that cities that
had higher GMP would possess baseball teams that were more
successful. Next in the research process, unemployment statistics for
each city was gathered along with the cities population. This information
was gathered from the source Profiles of the 50 Largest Cities of the
United States. It can be assumed that cities with higher unemployment
rate would not have a successful baseball team. It is also thought that
teams with a higher population would have a more successful team. The
final statistics that that was gathered were salary cap and average
payroll of each team. Both the salary cap and average payroll
information for each team was collected from the source "MLB Salaries".
Salary cap is term that means the amount of money a team spends on
its players. Average payroll is that average amount a player earns on
each team. It was assumed that the more money a team spends, the

more successful a team would be. These specific pieces of information

were gathered because it was thought that they would be significant in
determining a baseball teams success rate.

Descriptive Statistics:
Table 1. Descriptive Statistics
N

Minimum

Maximum

Mean

Std. Deviation

Wins

30

51.00

97.00

81.0333

12.25444

Losses

30

65.00

111.00

81.0333

12.19803

30

85.30

3474.70

452.7220

648.42338

30

22,062,600.0 228,835,490.0 104,344,290.30

47,003,291.70
0
0
00

30

817,133.00

7,468,882.00

30

296,950.00

25,145,561.00

Unemployment Percent

30

3.90%

19.80%

Valid N (listwise)

30

CityGMP (in millions)

SalaryCap (in millions)

Avg.Payroll
City Population (in
millions)

1586987.0313
4
4,947,661.177
2,923,765.2333
34
3,631,681.5667

9.3600%

2.91152%

Correlations:

When we ran the Correlations there were a few things we noticed. We

found that there was a strong Correlation with Average Payroll and City
GMP, Average Payroll and Salary Cap, Salary Cap and City. These strong

correlations can be found above in Table 2 highlighted in red.

Scatter Plots:
Figure 1.
Wins vs. City GMP

No Correlation

Figure 2.
Wins vs. Salary Cap

A positive correlation exists between wins and Average Payroll. As wins

increase,
The Salary Cap increases.

Figure 3.
Wins vs. Average Payroll

A positive correlation exists between wins and Average Payroll. As wins

increase,
Average payroll increases.

Figure 4.
Wins vs. Unemployment

No Correlation

Group Statistics:
The Winmean1represents less than or equal to 81 wins and Winmean2 represents
more than 81 wins.

After we ran our Correlations, the next step we took was to look at the
Group Statistics. As you can see, there is difference between all our
Independent variables against wins. The one that stood out was the
Salary Cap and Winmean which means either less than or equal to 81
wins or more than 81 wins. There was a big difference with the two

means of the Salary Cap. A team with a winmean of 1 (less than or

equal to 81 wins) had a far less Salary Cap than a winmean of 2 (more
than 81 wins). This shows that a team that paid their players more
money won more games.
Independent T-Test
Table 4. Independent T-Test

When we ran the Independent T-Test we were able to figure whether or

not there was a significant difference between our independent

variables and wins. After running this test we came to the conclusion
that there was no significant difference between City GMP and wins,
Salary cap and wins, Average payroll and wins, City population and wins,
and Unemployment rate and wins.
Multivariate Regression:
Table 5.
Model Summary
Model R

R Square

Adjusted R
Square

Std. Error of the

Estimate

1
.506a
.256
.101
11.62075
a. Predictors: (Constant), Unemployment Percent, CityGMP, City
Population, SalaryCap, Avg.Payroll
a

Model

Unstandardized
Coefficients

Standardized t
Coefficients

(Constant)

B
66.238

Std. Error Beta

8.418

CityGMP

-.008

.004

-.428

SalaryCap

-6.180E009

.000

-.024

-.022 .9

Avg.Payroll

3.927E-006 .000

.509

.460

City Population

-2.313E008

.000

-.009

-.048 .9

.524

.846

.125

.619

Unemployment
Percent
a. Dependent Variable: Wins

After figuring out the Multivariate Regression we came to the conclusion

7.869 .0
.0
2.125

.6

.5

that the R Square value of .506 suggests a moderately weak relationship

between all of the independent variables and the dependent variable. It
can be seen that the variable with the strongest positive correlation to
wins is Avg. Payroll with a beta score of .509. We ran this test to see the
relationships between the independent variables and wins and to see
what the regression was with our data.
After running various tests in SPSS we saw that there are no strong
relationships between wins and any of our independent variables. In
fact, the strongest relationship is between wins and average payroll, is
found in table 2 and the weakest relationship is between wins and city
GMP, is found in table 2. When looking at the Scatter plot Figure 2 and 3
it gives a visual representation of the positive correlation of average
payroll and wins and salary cap and wins. After running our tests and
looking at these variables, we accept the null hypothesis that there is no
difference between the success of a baseball team and the citys
economy. Therefore, we reject the research hypothesis that cities with a
higher economy would have a more successful baseball team. Lastly, we
came to the conclusion that the Citys GMP had an effect on the teams
average payroll and salary cap. If we ran these tests again, we would
include different independent variables against wins to give us a better
understanding on the relationships between MLB Standings and

Metropolitan Economy.

Works Cited
"Databases, Tables & Calculators by Subject." Bureau of Labor Statistics
Data.

5 Dec. 2013
2013.http://data.bls.gov/timeseries/LNS14000000

"Metro Economies Report." Usmayors.org. The United States Conference

of

Mayors, June 2011. Web. 17 Oct. 2013. http://www.usmayors.org

/metroeconomies/2011/charts.pdf.

" MLB Standings." Major League Baseball. Major League Baeball, 30

Sept. 2013.

Web. 17 Oct. 2013.

<http://mlb.mlb.com/mlb/standings/index.jsp>.
"MLB Salaries." CBSSports.com. N.p., n.d. Web. 30 Nov. 2013.
<http://www.cbssports.com/mlb/salaries>.

"Profiles of the 50 Largest Cities of the United States." Infoplease.

Infoplease, n.d. Web. 05 Dec. 2013.
<http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0108477.html>.
"Top 50 Cities in the U.S. by Population and Rank." Infoplease.
Infoplease, n.d. Web. 05 Dec. 2013.
<http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0763098.html>.