After completing the first two financial reports, I’ll be doing the rest of the reports according to their regular season record. In 2011, the Philadelphia Phillies had the best record in the Majors, but they failed to advance to the NLCS after losing to the Wild Card Team/World Series Champions, St. Louis Cardinals.

The apparently unbeatable Phillies with their pitching rotation sent from the baseball gods owned the regular season by winning 102 regular season games (53 above the 49 game line). One game less than the Oakland Athletics won in 2001 and with a lot less hype. The Phillies’ payroll was the second highest this past season with $172,976,379.03. That means the Phillies paid about $3,048,667.53 for every win above 49 they got.

Their top five paid players were:

– Roy Halladay ($20,000,000): Halladay went 19-6 with a 2.35 ERA, eight complete games and 220 strikeouts in 233.2 innings throughout 32 starts. Hallady earned $1,052,631.58 for every victory, or $90,909.09 for every strikeout he got.

– Ryan Howard ($20,000,000): Howard hit .253/.346/.488 with 33 HR’s, 116 RBI’s, 81 runs and a .835 OPS. Howard earned $606,060.61 for every home run he hit, or $172,413.79 for every RBI, $246,913.58 for every run scored, or $89,686.10 for every time he got on base.

– Roy Oswalt ($16,000,000): Oswalt went 9-10 with a 3.69 ERA and 93 strikeouts in 139.0 innings in 23 starts. Oswalt earned $1,777,777.78 for every win he got, or $172,043,01 for every strikeout.

– Chase Utley ($15,285,714): Utley hit .259/.344/.425 with 11 HR’s, 44 RBI’s, 54 runs scored and an OPS of .769. He got $1,389,610.36 for every homer he hit, or $347,402.59 for every run he batted in, or $97,985.35 for every time he got on base. Lets remember Utley was bothered with knee issues throughout the 2011 season affecting his production and effectiveness.

– Raul Ibanez ($12,166,667): Ibanez hit .245/.289/.419 with 20 HR’s, 84 RBI’s, 65 runs and a .707 OPS. Ibanez got $608,333.35 for every home run he hit, or $144,841.27 for every RBI, or $73,293.17 every time he got on base.

The Phillies had a collective OBP of .323, a SLG of .395 and a .717 OPS. They scored a total of 713, meaning the team paid about $242,603.62 for every run they scored. Taking a closer look at that number we can conclude that the team was focused on pitching rather than offense.

Even though the Phillies won 102 regular season games, most in the Majors, I think they failed to make the best out of every dollar spent. This means that if they had a significantly lower payroll, they would probably end up in the bottom of the NL East. The team spent $12,166,667 on a 39-year old guy that had an on-base percentage of .289, and even though he hit 20 homers, I truly believe the OBP is a more important offensive stat. Lets not forget that the higher OBP you have the less chances you have to become an out. And the most players you get on base the more runs you’ll probably score.

Utley is a different case here. He had a low offensive production season, but nobody was counting on him getting injured. Howard on the other hand had a not-so-impressive season while being in top physical shape. If Utley’s injury had something to do with it, I don’t know, but it could be. We’re not 100 percent certain. They also had an injured plagued Oswalt that lost one more game than he won and was the third highest player on the Phillies’ payroll.

The Phillies got to the postseason quicker than any other team in the Majors, but got eliminated in the first round against the St. Louis Cardinals, who compared with the Phillies were a more efficient team offensively. Their OBP, SLG and OPS percentage were higher than the Phillies’.

Image by Darrins under the Creative Commons License.