An interesting piece of analysis and visual infographics posted today on the O'Reilly Radar site. See http://radar.oreilly.com/archives/2007/05/baseball_team_overpaid.html
Assuming you have a baseball team, Ben Fry will let you answer that
question. He has created a tool for visualizing the salary of Major
League Baseball teams versus their performance in 2007 (prev. As he explains:
This sketch looks at all 30 Major League Baseball Teams and ranks them
on the left according to their day-to-day standings. The lines connect
each team to their 2007 salary, listed on the right.
Drag the date at the top to move through the season. The first ten
days of the season are ommitted because the rankings to (at least) that
point are statistically silly. You can also use the arrow keys on the
keyboard to move forward or backward one day.
A steep blue line means that the team is doing well for its money,
which reflects well on the team's General Manager. A steep red line
implies that the team is throwing away money. The thickness of the line
is proportional to the team's salary relative to the others.
The images above are captures of the beginning of the season rankings
(left) as compared to now (right). It looks like Boston is now at a
break-even point whereas the Yankees are sinking and a bit over-paid. I
wonder if any of the GM compensation decisions are made based on this
tool.