The Evil Empire of the New York Yankees is once again on the top of the baseball betting world. After winning its 27th title in roughly a century the Yanks became not only the most decorated team in the MLB (a distinction they already held by a comfortable margin before the 2010 baseball betting season) but in all of professional sports.

It’s no secret that the Yankees payroll is also larger than the Gross National Product most developing country and that tends to rub people the wrong way. That’s especially true of the Yankees most recent MLB odds title as the World Series ring was won with mercenaries. During the past offseason –and in the midst of the second worst financial crisis in the past 100 years- the Yanks spent lavishly to land two of the best starting pitchers in baseball betting: CC Sabathia and AJ Burnett.

But contrary to popular belief a big payroll is no guarantee of success in the MBL odds. Take for example, the New York Mets or the Chicago Cubs. These teams spend money like it’s going out of style and yet they haven’t won a title in a very long time, in Chicago’s case a century.

Or in contrast take a look at a team like the Florida Marlins which until MLB recently forced the team to pay its players more, had the lowest payroll in the Majors nearly every single year yet always seemed to be in the playoff hunt in September. So go ahead and bemoan the Yankees and other big spenders for buying titles, but at the end of the day the right mix of personnel is more important than the payroll and a good personnel director/GM is more important than the money any day of the week.