Bob Cook

Gen. Douglas MacArthur once said, “On the fields of friendly strife are sown the seed that on other days and other fields will bear the fruits of victory.” In other words, the intense bonding experience riding buses for endless hours with the Pacific Coast League champion Tucson Sidewinders sowed the seeds of today’s Arizona Diamondbacks success.

“I think the fact that a group of them did win a championship in Triple-A last year, and did it in a decided fashion, probably goes a long way in that type of camaraderie that eases that transition coming into the big leagues as a group,” Diamondbacks manager Bob Melvin said.

OK, so Melvin’s words don’t exactly stir the soul like MacArthur’s. But one-third of his players competed at some point for those championship Sidewinders, and about half of them have spent their whole careers in the Arizona system, going a long way toward explaining why the Diamondbacks, with the fifth-smallest payroll in baseball, are now one of the top four teams in the majors.

The Diamondbacks aren’t alone. Cleveland and Colorado also have bought big-time success with bottom-10 payrolls, also thanks to rosters heavy with players they developed, some of whom have played together in small parks where the biggest crowd excitement was kids getting to run the bases after the game.

In these baseball playoffs, money matters, but only a little bit. What matters more is scouting and player development.

The bottom 10 had only one fewer representative in the playoffs than the top 10 payrolls, six of whom ended their seasons promptly on Sept. 30. The only Division Series in which the team with the bigger pocketbook won was No. 2 Boston ($143 million) over the No. 5 Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim ($109.2 million).

No. 23 Cleveland, with a $61.8 million payroll, beat No. 1 New York. No. 25 Colorado, at $54.4 million, swept No. 14 Philadelphia. No. 26 Arizona, the fifth-lowest at $52.1 million, beat No. 8 Chicago.

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The three low-budget clubs didn’t intend to make a grand statement about the benefits of thrift. They just had to make do with what they had, particularly because all three at one point had to purge salaries after becoming the same overpaid, underachieving clubs that now fill up a lot of baseball’s top 10 payrolls.

When pitcher Randy Johnson returned to Arizona this season after three years with the Yankees, he had to be stunned by what he saw. Rather than the veteran-laden club paid big bucks to win the 2001 World Series, the youthful club Johnson rejoined had the second-lowest payroll ever for Arizona, behind its 1998 expansion year ($28.9 million). An ownership change and hemorrhaging cash flow helped kick payroll downward from its 2002 peak of $102.8 million, which was No. 4 in the majors.

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While Josh Byrnes, 35, is among the latest young wunderkinds to fill a general manager’s chair, most of the many draft choices and undrafted free agents that have panned out nicely were signed under the watch of former GM Joe Garagiola Jr., who left in 2005 to become Major League Baseball’s senior vice president of operations.

Eight current members of the Arizona Diamondbacks were with last year‘s Sidewinders, a roster that at various points of the season included such key players Stephen Drew, Chris Young, Micah Owings and Tony Pena.

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Twelve players out of Arizona’s 25-man playoff roster, including 2006 Cy Young Award winner Brandon Webb, closer Jose Valverde, and No. 1 picks Justin Upton (2005), Drew (2004) and Conor Jackson (2003), were drafted or originally signed by the Diamondbacks, while others such as Young came in trades but spent time in the Diamondbacks system.

Mark Shapiro faced a similar situation in Cleveland. Upon becoming general manager in 2001, he had to cut payroll (which had peaked at $92.6 million, fifth-most in the baseball) to clear the aged remains of the Indians’ 1990s playoff perennials.

The Indians’ drafts haven’t produced much — only three of the 25 players on the playoff roster were Cleveland draftees. But Shapiro, who had served in various front office positions since 1991, and the Indians were adept at finding undrafted free agents such as Jhonny Peralta, Victor Martinez and Fausto Carmona.

They were even more adept at trading veteran dross, or what turned out to be dross even if it didn’t look like that right away, for minor-leaguers to grow up through their system. Among those players are half of Cleveland‘s positional starting lineup: Grady Sizemore (acquired from Montreal in the Bartolo Colon trade), Travis Hafner (acquired for two players now out of baseball), Franklin Gutierrez (for Milton Bradley) and Asdrubal Cabrera (for Eduardo Perez).

Cleveland hasn’t been a total bottom-feeder. Its payroll has about doubled since bottoming out in 2004, with money going to pay some of these young players, as well as veteran additions such as Paul Byrd and Trot Nixon. But it’s also a sign of baseball’s inflation that doubling salaries has pushed the Indians only from the fourth-lowest payroll to the eighth-lowest.

In Colorado, general manager Dan O’Dowd had to cut payroll because of bloat he himself caused. O’Dowd, the Rockies GM since 1999, was responsible for the disastrous 2001 signings of pitchers Mike Hampton (eight years, $121 million) and Denny Neagle (five years, $51.5 million). That season, Colorado had the 13th-highest payroll, hitting its peak at $71.8 million.

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