Here's a fun graph of Major League Baseball team victories (vertical axis) plotted as a function of opening day payrolls (horizontal). I was surprised to find an upward sloping relationship with as much statistical significance as there is, although here not enough to pass the standard test of a 95% confidence bound. There are plenty of reasons to quibble with this graph, not least of which being that opening day payrolls change a lot as the season play out, but I thought it was fun. No wonder the Yankees would like to get under the luxury tax threshold!