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No team with a top-five payroll has a winning record and four are in last place

This obviously isn’t going to last all season, but right now it’s pretty damn startling to look at the standings and see that the five teams with the highest payrolls in MLB are all .500 or worse and four of them are currently in last place.

New York leads MLB with a $198 million payroll, yet the Yankees are 21-21 and tied for last place in the AL East with the Red Sox, who have MLB’s third-highest payroll at $173 million.

Philadelphia sits between them in payroll at $175 million and the Phillies are bringing up the rear in the NL East at 21-22. Similarly the Angels rank fourth with a $155 million payroll and are the AL West’s last-place team at 18-25. Detroit is the only top-five payroll to avoid last place, but the Tigers and their $132 million payroll aren’t exactly thriving with a 20-21 record that’s good for third place in the horrendous AL Central.

Add it all up and those five teams have spent around $833 million on players for this season, and after one quarter of the schedule they’re a combined 101-110 and 27 total games out of first place.

All of which makes me wonder: When it comes to the Yankees, Red Sox, Tigers, Angels, and Phillies making the playoffs this season, how you would bet if the over/under was set at 2.5 teams? I’d likely still take the over.