MLB's Strangest Trend in 2023: Big-Spending Teams Aren't Winning

"You get what you pay for" is a useful saying, and we'll make a sweeping generalization that it's true more often than not.

So long as it's not applied to the 2023 Major League Baseball season, that is.

In 2022, teams generally did get what they paid for. The 12-team playoff field consisted of nine clubs—including all five of the biggest spenders—that were in the top half of the league in payroll and just three in the bottom half.

It's early yet, but what's unfolding in 2023 is basically the Bizarro World version of last year. If the season had ended with Memorial Day on Monday, the playoff field would have been split evenly between six teams in the bottom half in payroll and six teams in the…