Question

Mean and Median In a recent year, the players on the New York Yankees baseball team had salaries with a mean of \(7,052,129 and a median of \)2,500,000. Explain how the mean and median can be so far apart.

Short answer

Because there are a limited number of players with significantly high incomes, the mean is heavily influenced by their values, resulting in a huge mean value.However, the median is unaffected by the small number of extremely high salaries.

Step-by-step solution

Given information

The mean value of the salary of baseball team players is $7,052,129.

The median value of the salary of baseball team players is $2,500,000.

Interpretation of the mean and median values

The large value of the mean indicates that some of the players have extremely highsalaries.

This means that the extreme values significantlyaffect the mean value.

But the median value seems quite moderate.

This implies that the extreme values do not affect the median value.

This explains why the mean and the median are far apart.