When it comes to the payroll, it is about dollars and sense

It is certainly reasonable to assume that a bigger payroll for a Major League Baseball team provides them a better chance to win. After all, you get what you pay for, right?

For many years in the American League East, this held true. The big spending New York Yankees and Boston Red Sox controlled the division. They threw money at their problems and, in a sport without a salary cap, they won.

But that has not held true for some time now. The Tampa Bay Rays won the AL East in 2008 with an opening day payroll of $43.7 million. In 2010, Tampa Bay won again with a payroll of $72.8 million. The Orioles were a wild card team in 2012 with a payroll of $84.1 million and a division champion in 2014 at $108 million for an opening day payroll.

If you never thought you would see parity in the AL East, you were wrong. It is here now. Four different teams have won the division since 2012: New York, followed by Boston, Baltimore and Toronto.

When Buck Showalter was named Orioles manager, he said Tampa Bay ended any excuses a team could make that it could not compete with a lower payroll. He was right.

This year, only three of the top nine payroll teams in the major leagues made the playoffs. Six of the biggest spenders went home. Of those three - the Dodgers, Yankees and Rangers - none won a playoff series and they combined to go 4-7 in postseason games. This is certainly not the year of the big spender.

We could see a World Series featuring Kansas City and the New York Mets. Kansas City ranks 16th in payroll and the Mets are 21st. The Cubs made the final four. It could have been the Cubs and Royals. A few years ago a suggestion of one day seeing the Cubs and Royals play each other in the World Series would have been laughed at.

I am not sure exactly how baseball arrived at this point, but lower to middle payroll teams no longer begin the season with little hope. They know they have hope and a chance to win.

Here is the L.A. Dodgers' payroll the last three years:

2013 - $216 million
2014 - $229 million
2015 - $273 million

That netted the Dodgers one postseason series win in the last three years. The Orioles can match that with one postseason series win over the past three years.

The Orioles' 2015 payroll was very much in line with the final four teams this year:

$123 million - Toronto
$119 million - Chicago Cubs
$114 million - Kansas City
$110 million - Orioles
$101 million - New York Mets

Does this mean the Orioles don't need to increase their payroll? No, it does not. Player salaries always go up, at least for the top talent, and if the Orioles need to add payroll to field a playoff team, they have to do it.

All teams put a premium on young talent. They want those so-called zero-to-three players (in service time) that earn the major league minimum or close to it until they reach arbitration. The Orioles had a few of those make big contributions this year in players like Manny Machado, Jonathan Schoop, Caleb Joseph, Brad Brach and Mychal Givens. To balance the higher salaries, you need some young talent that helps your club at the other end of the salary scale.

The Orioles have some tough decisions to make this winter. Can they sign Chris Davis and also add a top of the rotation starting pitcher? Can they retain key players like Darren O'Day?

But during a 2015 season when six of the nine top spenders didn't make the postseason and when the World Series winner will have at most a payroll of $123 million, we can't say the Orioles can't win at their current payroll level.

More on the money: Here is an excellent article from the New York Times about how the Mets have won with a modest payroll.

In the story, Mets general manager Sandy Alderson talked about the club's unwillingness to pursue high-priced free agents. He said, "Marquee players who've performed well in the past is always a temptation and a potential solution to whatever problems a team may have. But history tells us that it doesn't always work out. In fact, it works out rarely."

The Orioles are on the list: When the Mets completed their four-game sweep of the Cubs in the National League Championship Series, they did so without ever trailing in the four games. These six teams have swept a seven-game series without trailing one time:

* 1963 World Series - Dodgers over Yankees
* 1966 World Series - Orioles over Dodgers
* 1989 World Series - Oakland A's over San Francisco Giants
* 2004 World Series - Red Sox over St. Louis Cardinals
* 2012 American League Championship Series - Detroit Tigers over Yankees
* 2015 NLCS - Mets over Cubs