Anyone who doesn't buy into that philosophy needs to look no further than the current playoff situation in Major League Baseball for proof that money spent does not equal rings won.

The New York Yankees, barons of the baseball world, are not going to win their twenty-sixth World Series title this fall, but that doesn't mean they're no longer the most influential team in baseball. If it is true that last year's loss lit a fire under George Steinbrenner you can imagine what their most recent loss to the Anaheim Angels is going to have.

The Yankees needed some major retooling after their defeat in the World Series last year: key players retired, were let go or traded away.

Steinbrenner's theory of loading his team with as many big-money stars as possible became even more apparent as he was able to grab the pick of the free agent litter last winter; while this year's team isn't in need of as much reconstructive surgery, you can bet that Steinbrenner thinks it does.

One expert at ESPN has predicted that the Yankees will spend upwards of million in payroll next season: that's more than any professional team has ever spent in one season, and if you need any more convincing that the business of baseball is broken, that was the combined payroll of the Minnesota Twins, Anaheim Angels, and St. Louis Cardinals at the start of last season!

I'm not here to preach the evils of George Steinbrenner and those damn Yankees ¯ many teams in Major League Baseball believe that more money spent translates into more wins.

For the most part they're correct, the Top 10 teams in payroll last season won an average of almost 90 games, and the bottom 10 won an average of only 75 games.

The problem is that the middle 10 teams only won an average of 78 games a year. Maybe there is a little truth behind the big payroll myth after all.

Like all good things though, regular season wins do not equal playoff performance.

Baseball plays the most regular season games of any of the "big four" (NFL, NHL, NBA and MLB.) Only eight teams make the playoffs every year ¯ a number most comparable to the NFL's 12 teams, yet baseball has a playoff structure similar to the NBA and the NHL.

Getting to the playoffs is the hard part: staying there is relatively easy. You pay big dollars to get your team into the post-season and then hope their dynamic is right to keep them going.

The difference between this Yankee team and the Yankees of the late '90s was that those Yankees spent the big money to keep the dynamic together for the post-season; these Yankees spend the big money to get to the post-season.

That's why low-budget teams like the Twins and the Angels are still playing baseball and the big-budget Yankees are at home watching baseball.

Does this mean that we're going to see a radical change in the way that teams will be put together under the new collective bargaining agreement? Early indications point to no.

Right now it looks like the average payroll is going to stay the same next season with most teams staying in their respective spending bracket. This isn't because teams fear the next luxury tax and increased revenue sharing, but because revenue was down last season.

In fact, it doesn't appear that the new collective bargaining agreement is going to have any effect on small-market teams; most low-budget owners plan on pocketing the money instead of putting it back into the team.

That's where the new agreement falls short. Without a mandatory "minimum spending" clause there's no reason for an owner of a low-budget team to spend more money.

Similarly, the increased luxury tax is a possible bust next season ¯ with only three teams predicted to pay a tax and only an estimated million to be collected and distributed, there's little chance that teams will slow down their spending ways. If a team goes over the tax barrier with a free agent signing or a trade, they simply have to pay the league a little bit extra; it is a slap on the wrist. This tax is then distributed among the lower-spending teams, but owners still don't have any incentive to spend.

The bargaining agreement reached Aug. 30 was monumental in how it signaled that baseball's owners and players were closer than ever, as well as more committed to fixing baseball's problems. The real test will arise in 2006, when this latest agreement expires and a new agreement will be needed.

Owners and players had great foresight to see that baseball needed some kind of damage control, but that's really all this bargaining agreement is: a bandage over the wound. Now the question is, will that bandage hold for four years, and will they be ready to fix things by then?