I'd imagine the majority of sports have a fairly loose correlation between money spent and winning due to (a) limited sample size leading to high variance (even with a superior player selection strategy), (b) limited number of games played (though baseball does better than other sports here), and (c) games consisting of more dependent than independent events (leading to low chance events having cascading repurcussions).
At least in MLB, 40 multi-year players isn't that large a sample!
I don't disagree, but I also don't think that's indicative that paying the most money is the optimal strategy. I'd much rather play for a team that does win rather than one that "should" but doesn't. My point, which I alluded to in the last paragraph, was not that teams shouldn't spend a lot of money, but that spending a lot of money is not a good substitute for spending money intelligently.
At least in MLB, 40 multi-year players isn't that large a sample!