Financially investing in a roster can serve as a postseason separator for major-league teams.
The teams with the five highest payrolls for 2022 made the postseason, and three of them reached their league championship series. The other playoff teams’ payrolls, per Spotrac, ranked eighth, ninth, 11th, 12th, 21st, 25th and 28th.
Typically the quality of players those figures are committed to can be game-changers in the condensed postseason format. And often those investments come through free agency.
