2011 Organizational Rankings: #10 – Colorado
Colorado will never lead the league in payroll. It’s unlikely that someone will write a book about its front office or coaching staff. Yet, the Rockies have been to the playoffs two out of the last four years and should contend for the next several seasons. Above-average results with average resources is what makes Colorado a Top 10 organization in baseball.
Present Talent – 85.00 (T-5th)
Future Talent – 80.00 (T-15th)
Financial Resources – 78.85 (13th)
Baseball Operations – 78.33 (T-16th)
Overall Ranking – 80.74 (10th)
While Denver is a medium-sized city, the 18th-largest U.S. television market, the Rockies have an advantage which helps them out-spend their market size: isolation. The closest baseball city to Denver is Kansas City, a nine-hour drive down Highway 70. Having no baseball teams within a 600-mile radius gives the Rockies a regional following which helps them finish in the top-half of attendance nearly every season (10th in 2010, 11th in 2009, 13th in 2008).
Despite staying out of the free-agent fray, Dan O’Dowd and the Colorado front office had a very eventful offseason, signing Troy Tulowitzki and Carlos Gonzalez to multi-year contract extensions. By promising $230-plus million dollars between their two offensive studs, the Rockies flexed their moderately-sized financial muscles. It’s total cliche, but only time will tell if these deals will be worth the money. Any long-term deal is a gamble, but these look like fairly well-calculated risks. First, Tulowitzki and Gonzalez are very, very good. They ranked fifth and ninth in the league in WAR, respectively. The years and dollars can be debated, but neither player looks to have been grossly overpaid. Further, the Rockies chose to hitch their wagon to position players who, even with Tulowitzki’s history, have a greater likelihood of staying on the field than pitchers. From a mile-high view, the Rockies could have spent $200 million a lot worse.
The Rockies were 16th in the majors in payroll last year at $84 million, and this is probably a comfortable level for the near future. Todd Helton’s salary finally drops significantly after this year, but the future deferred money will still have to be accounted for, and this will not likely open up a new pool of money to spend. The big dollars in Tulowitzki and Gonzalez’s contracts begin to kick in after this year as well, as the duo is due only $6.5 million in 2011, but then $13.25 million in 2012, and $17.25 million in 2013.
Colorado ranks 5th (tied with Atlanta) in terms of current MLB talent, so the roster is obviously strong, but it’s also extremely well-put together. O’Dowd has assembled a home-grown team which is versatile, well-rounded, deep conscious of its unique home park. The pitching staff, led by longtime coach Bob Apodacta, is full of arms which can succeed at Coors Field. All five starters in the Colorado rotation had K/9 over 7.0 and at least a 46-percent ground ball percentage in 2010. When Aaron Cook returns from injury, and presumably joins the rotation, he is the exception in terms of strikeout rate, but he has been able to overcome the thin air due to his elite ground ball skills.
In the debate about baseball’s best franchises, Colorado is in the conversation, but definitely a notch below the elite franchises. The Rockies moved a lot of chips to the middle of the table this offseason, banking on Tulowitzki and Gonzalez to be the cornerstones of a contending team for the next several years. Those moves are defendable for the time being, but the Rockies and their fans know all too well how a bad contract can cripple a mid-market team for years.
Jesse has been writing for FanGraphs since 2010. He is the director of Consumer Insights at GroupM Next, the innovation unit of GroupM, the world’s largest global media investment management operation. Follow him on Twitter @jesseberger.
A little surprised that they rank 5 in present talent. Seems a bit favorable.
Maybe a bit. But if you look around their field players, spot a hole. If the worst thing you can come up with is Jose Lopez at second base, it’s probably a pretty good team overall.
An outfield of Gonzales, Fowler, and Smith is pretty good offensively and defensively, though Fowler still remains a bit of an enigma.
An infield of Stewart, Lopez, Helton, and arguably the best short stop in baseball? Helton is perhaps done, but finding a decent replacement first baseman isn’t that hard.
Starting rotation probably could use a little work, but the bullpen is fine.
It’s a defensible argument. The Rox have quietly put together a very good team.
Jose Lopez is kind of not good.
Jose Lopez was supremely unsuited for Safeco Field. His talents (right-handed, pull, flyball hitter) will play much better at Coors. He’ll have a big bounce-back year.
“Helton is perhaps done, but finding a decent replacement first baseman isn’t that hard.”
The difficulty in replacing a first basemen shouldn’t affect the present talent rating. The fact still remains, he’s their first basemen and probably needs replacing.
I’m not saying I totally disagree with the ranking. I wouldn’t put them 5th, but I can see how 4th-10th would probably be close enough that voting could place any of them anywhere.
@ U-G,
Even if the Jose Lopez career resurrection fails in Colorado, they still have a lot of depth behind him in Nelson, EYJ, and Herrera.
Tied for 5th does sound high. But if they’re using a standard grading curve, the 85 grade on present talent is a solid B, which sounds about right. It seems like there should be more teams ranked ahead of them, but how many teams in baseball obviously have more talent on hand? Five or Six?
I see 6 holes: Lopez, obviously; Ianetta, a burst of talent a couple of years ago; Stewart and Smith, good platoon players who must now hit lefties as well; Helton, done; Fowler, promising but not proven.
That leaves the admittedly top-rate Tulowitzki and Gonzalez, who’s had one good season.
In addition, the pitching staff looks average to me.
I like the Rockies potential, but their reality is average at best. Only playing in the NL West makes them a legitimate contender.
I have the Rockies ranked 11th, so I completely agree with this one. The Rockies are solid but not spectacular in almost every factor. I have them 11th in on field success, 14th in minor league system, 17th in market cap and 10th in payroll efficiency.
Correct me if I am wrong but the Blue Jays are the only team left that hasn’t made the playoffs in a while.
To put it bluntly, comparing your ranking system to this one is completely useless. You are using different categories and criteria.
This whole thing is pretty annoying without full transparency and methodology, come to think of it. At least you have some of that in your system. I disagree with how you did it, but at least I can see it spelled out.
Part of my exercise was to see if I could match or do better by putting no more than 30 minutes of labor into it.
vr, Xei
How can you possibly try to “match or do better” something that is completely subjective? I have the sudden urge to call you an idiot.
I’m wondering if these four categories were defined for the voters any more than they were for the readers. If not, then everyone was voting according to their own criteria, making our attempts to define “baseball operations” after the fact moot.
So the Blue Jays are pretty much the Mariners this year. Overrated based on some recent trades viewed favorably by the Fangraphs community.
I’m sympathetic to the fact that the Jays have actually been a pretty good team the last 5-6 years, and have a decent system, and in another division would have some optimism. But consistently winning 85 games in a division that requires 95 doesn’t really bode well for the future.
Strength of division don’t factor into these (fangraphs) rankings
You make a very excellent point. However, “Organizational Success” was never defined at the onset of this ranking. Therefore, your interpretation of “success” (which sounds like it requires winning your division and making the playoffs once in a while) differs from FG’s un-articulated version of success – which is implicitly defined by their 4 categories.
So, while I would agree with FG that the Jays should be ranked highly by the 4 categories laid out in this endeavor, I would also agree with you that by most classic measure of “Success” (ie winning/playoffs) they have not had, and will likely continue not to have success, considering the division they play in.
You see how everything is horrible and murky when they don’t define success?
If only someone was suggesting that at the beginning of this project.
Jimmy,
The Jays are not the Mariners of last year. They’re rated in most people’s top 10’s now because of yes, Anothopolous’ early success but also Toronto is one of the biggest cities in North America with one of the richest owner’s in baseball.
Their starting rotation measures up with almost anybody’s in baseball despite being one of the youngest. The way that their farm system has transformed in the last two years alone has been incredible, going from 25th or so to most people to now having a top 5 minor league system.
It’s been almost 18 years now since they’ve made the playoffs so I know a lot of people rightfully look down on that but I wouldn’t be surprised at all if they finished ahead of Tampa this season. They finished ahead of Boston a couple years back.
The Jays have gotten worse compared to last year (Marcum, Wells, Buck, Gonzalez, Downs, Gregg, Overbay gone, Bautista regression). I’d be less surprised if they finished last this season than if they finished first.
meant to say: than if they finished ahead of Tampa (not first)
I am pretty sure trading Wells (or rather his contract) improved their rankings. Sure they struggle in the AL East and will have a hard time making the playoffs.
How would they do in the other 5 divisions? Pretty sure if you take them out of the AL East, which probably will contain 3 of the top 5 rated teams, and they are a contender (or favorite) to win the division this year moving forward. Do you rank their talent, resources, or operations lower simply because other teams in the division have more or are doing it better?
I was responding to the person above me who mentioned the Jays possibly finishing ahead of Tampa this year. No doubt the Wells trade was a huge win for the Jays. My comment was contingent on the Jays being in the AL East. I do believe they would be more competitive in another division.
I’m thinking the baseball operations should be ranked a little higher since the bulk of the team is homegrown, the recent trades (sans for Delcarmen) have been pretty slick, the team has a strong Latin America presence, and has recently started spending a bit more in drafts. But those prospects haven’t reached the majors yet so it’s difficult to really see if the drafting has improved.
At any rate, solid write-up.
Present talent 5th over the Giants’ 10th? I don’t think so
I’d rather have Gonzalez, Fowler, Smith, Stewart, Tulowitzki, Lopez, Helton, and Ianetta than DeRosa, Torres, Huff, Fat Ichiro, Tejada, Sanchez, Ishikawa, and Posey. More specifically, I’d rather try to predict how well those Rockies perform going forward than those Giants.
The Giants pitching staff is superior, but that’s all they have. I’ll take Colorado’s field players and bullpen over San Francisco’s.
the proof will be in the pudding. I’ll take the Giants and their ability to win on the road.
It is probably fair to label Colorado’s position players as stronger than SF but I am interested to see how you can say you’d rather have the Rockies bullpen over the Giants one?
“I’d rather have Gonzalez, Fowler, Smith, Stewart, Tulowitzki, Lopez, Helton, and Ianetta than DeRosa, Torres, Huff, Fat Ichiro, Tejada, Sanchez, Ishikawa, and Posey.”
I would too. Of course, I’d take almost any team’s starting 8 over another team’s 6 starters and two reserves. I’d even take Colorado’s starting 8 over the Giants’ starting 8, but I wouldn’t take the Rockies pen.
@nickjp
I wish the Giants all the best if they expect to get the same results in 2011 as they did in 2010 from Casilla, Romo, Ramirez, and Lopez. Plus Wilson is dinged up. I’ll take Betancourt, Beslile, Lindstrom, Reynolds, and Street instead.
I can see being skeptical about Casilla (and the other two guys only pitched for the Giants for two months), but what makes Romo worse or less reliable than the guys you mentioned from the Rockies pen? He now has 130 innings in the majors at a 162 ERA with 2.3 BB/9 and 10.0 K/9. I don’t think he deserves to be lumped in with Casilla, Ramirez and Lopez.
@LD303
The following post is accompanied by the disclaimer that for the most part bullpen performance is highly streaky.
Wlison > Street
Yes, Wilson is dinged up to start the season and might miss the first week, but I really wouldn’t worry about that long-term. Street’s injury history is more scarier than Wilson’s.
If both are healthy, the advantage is clearly to Wilson. His FIP (and ERA) in each the last two years (2.50 and 2.19) are significantly better than any of Street’s with the only year within striking distance happening in 2006 with Oakland.
Romo > Belisle
I’m not sure why you are discounting Romo’s 2010 season as statistically it has looked similar to every season he has had in pro ball at all levels (K/9 > 10 and BB/9 in the low-mid 2’s). Using FIP, 2010 was actually worse than 2009 for him.
Belisle on the other hand seems to be a strong statistical outlier season last year. He had a K/9 of 8.9 despite the fact he had never had a season above 6.5. It was also the first time he had ever had an ERA or FIP below 3. While maybe this represents a change in his true talent level, it is unlikely at 30 years old to be the case.
Maybe it’s a push at best but Romo’s success looks far more sustainable than Belisle’s
Casilla Reynolds
Comparing LHPs here, I chose to replace Affeldt over Lopez because basically Affeldt is better.
While Reynolds had an impressive 18 inning debut season, it was only 18 innings and those 18 innings revealed that he got unsustainably lucky. His BABIP was .182 and he had a strand rate of 91.6%. I think its safe to say that those are unsustainable. His FIP was 3.80 compared to his ERA of 2.00.
Affeldt struggled some last year but still put up a similar FIP (3.98) to Reynolds and has a track record of doing the same (3.59 and 3.66 the previous two years).
Also, the Giants LHP depth comes into play here as they have both Lopez and Runzler as other LHP options. In fact, Runzler’s stats except ERA are significantly better than Reynolds.
Ramirez = Lindstrom
These guys are essentially the same pitcher. Both have mid 7 K/9 and high 3 BB/9. Ramirez has the better career ERA and Lindstrom the better FIP (although not by much). It would appear that there is some luck involved regarding BABIP for both pitchers (good for Ramirez, bad for Lindstrom), although it is hard to say with any certainty given there is not a large sample size as they are both relievers.
Giants Others > Rockies Others
The other two bullpen spots on the Rockies appear to be for Felipe Paulino and Franklin Morales, who frankly aren’t any good.
The Giants will counter with Lopez, Runzler and probably Mota. All three are serviceable at worst and good in an upcase scenario.
I’m not really sure how objectively you can say the Rockies bullpen is better than the Giants, especially at the top end with Wilson/Romo being significantly stronger than Street/Belisle.
Where does Betancourt, you know the guy with the 11/1 K/BB fit into your scale?
You have disproven your own point by comparing Giants players who are likely to be cut soon, DeRosa and Ishikawa, with Rockies starters. I guess that means the Rockies should be ranked last.
@Mr. wOBAto
Part of the post I accidently cut when posting. Betancourt ranked as better than Casilla and I wrote that that wasnt particularly close.
It should then read Affeldt > Reynolds, not Casilla.
GiantHusker,
Admittedly I went with the depth chart shown on their official MLB page as I don’t know more.
However, since you obviously know more than I do, who is going to replace DeRosa? I presume Belt will replace Ishikawa, but whether or not that matters will depend on Belt. Some first years get off to a bang (Posey) some don’t.
I think that assessment assumes some regression for huff & torres. without those 2 star-level performances last year, the giants’ lineup seems unimpressive. not bad, necessarily, but not elite.
Because Car-go and his .380 BABIP aren’t going to regress? The Rockies have better hitting than the Giants but IMO, the difference between them is less than the difference between the Giants pitching and the Rockies.
@DustyGator
CarGo’s xBABIP last year was .350. He earned than high BABIP more than he lucked into it. Sure he’ll regress. Just not THAT much. Plus, if he continues to walk at a better rate, improvement in his game might absorb that regression. For Huff, there’s nowhere to go but down
HAHAHAHA awww isn’t that cute, Andrew T. Fisher thinks that Gonzalez is going to continue to have an insanely high BABIP based on one season.
@ Andrew Fisher
A regression to .350 BABIP would have a pretty serious effect. For example, assuming everything else was the same CarGo’s his .336/.376/.598 becomes .303/.346/.556.
While the second slash line is still impressive, it drops his OPS from Konerko levels to Luke Scott.
Just as a mental exercise, if his BABIP drops to .316 (meaning as unlucky as he was lucky), the slash line drops to .271/.316/.513 or approximately Vernon Wells 2010 season with less walks.
Speaking of walks, I’m not sure how you can say “if he continues to walk at a better rate” as his BB% dropped significantly from 8.8% in 2009 to 6.3% in 2010.
@nickjp
There are some reasons to be optimistic for CarGo to increase his walk rate.
1. he’s still young and developing, and as you mentioned has displayed a higher walk rate in the past. (his walk rate in the minors in 2009 was about 10% too).
2. He’s expected to bat 3rd this season. Last season, batting out of the 3rd spot, his bb rate was higher than 6%. It was him batting leadoff for the early part of the season where he barely drew walks.
Again, not really a sure sign of anything, but it doesn’t seem too unlikely that he can raise his bb% a bit to offset some BABIP regression…
@Resolution
While there is some hope that he can bump his walk rate (as you said it was 10% in AAA a couple years ago and 8.8% last year), there are other factors that seem to indicate that he is trending in the wrong direction.
His O-Swing% jumped to 37% last year which indicates he is getting less patient.
It isnt just the hitting where the Rockies are better. I will go out on a limb here and say the best pitcher on either team is Ubaldo Jiminez. 5th vs 10th seems right to me not off the reservation but the Giants would probably rank about 8th to me.
We might see what advantage Colorado really has over the rest of the league if someone can get them to start playing well in April and May one of these years.
Based on what metrics would Jimenez be better than Lincecum?
Lincecum strikes out more hitters, walks less and they have an identical GB%.
Yes, Jimenez had a better ERA last year but alot of that was a result of luck including an unsustainable 5.1% HR/FB rate while pitching half the time at Coors Field.
Going by FIP, Jimenez was slightly better than Lincecum last year (3.10 to 3.15), which means that Jimenez best ever year was less than 2% better than Lincecum’s worst.
Also, xFIP has Lincecum (3.09) well ahead of Jimenez (3.60). Jimenez is a great pitcher but he is not better than Lincecum.
I have to strongly disagree with Jimenez > Lincecum. I might say Jimenez = Cain. Dude has great stuff but SERIOUS control issues.
wouldn’t Jason Hammel=Cain?
gonna turn a blind eye to timmeh’s rapidly declining fastball i guess
A couple minor notes. First, I believe Nielsen currently has Denver rated 16th among TV markets (and Arbitron puts them 20th for radio). Second, it’s worth noting that the Denver media market doesn’t include Colorado Springs, which is only an hour or so away; the Springs/Pueblo media market isn’t huge, but still, adding the 91st-largest TV market to the 16th-largest would presumably move them up the list a bit, and give a clearer picture of the Rockies’ ticket-buying base.
Include Greeley, Fort Collins, Cheyenne, and the Mountain Towns in that total as well.
I really like the Tulo and Gonzalez signings by the Rockies. This is the sort of “free agents” a team in Colorado’s situation – reasonable, but not exorbitant, payroll – should be chasing.
So the Mariners who have the 15th best farm system (per this site) end up tied for 5th on future talent, while the Rockies who were rated BETTER at 14th end up tied for 15th (with a lot of future talent locked up at the MLB level)
And the Orioles with the 23rd best farm system end up tied for 5th on future talent?
The future talent portion of this ranking is a bit of a mess and appears full of subjectivity with no clear definition of how it is measured. Given the other criteria are also subjective is the new ranking system a step forward? (sure it has #’s tied to some nebulous criteria but simply putting a # on something doesn’t necessarily make things more clear and objective)
Oops Mariners were 16th on the farm system ranking (which doesn’t make things any better)
Guess for tomorrow:
9- Rangers
8- Blue Jays
7- Reds
Braves, Rays and Twins probably 6-4 in some combination. Yankees should have first locked up with elite farm and finances, but Philly and Boston should be interesting for 2 and 3. I’d probably go Philly.
Philly won’t make the top 5. 8th or 9th.
They are top 3 in finances and present talent as well as having a top 10 farm system. Not sure if that post is a joke or what…
Boston will probably be #1, Yankees #2, Philly #3
– There is the complete ridiculousness of the future talent (10 way tie for 5th), so it’s unlikely the future talent will matter much… (heck the team with the 23rd ranked farm ended up tied for 5th)
– Theo is a God here, Amaro Jr is not, Cashman just gets by with money
New York and Philly have vastly superior farm systems compared to Boston, I just don’t see where they make up all that lost ground. All 3 teams are top 3 in present talent and finances, NY first in finances all we can be sure of.
I’m not sure why you put Epstein on a pedestal for doing the same thing as Cashman. Fangraphs writers are smart enough to recognize the countless mistakes he has covered up with money bandages, there won’t be much of a gap between the two, if any.
That horrible farm system is going to be the difference if these writers know anything about baseball, and they most certainly do.
I’m not as high on the Phillies farm system as you guys are. After Brown it gets a little thin and overrated, honestly.
Amaro Jr. is a lame GM who’s just run into success. Cashman’s trade for Gonzalez was much more deftly executed than anything Amaro’s ever done.
Paul,
I’m not necessarily endorsing Amaro as a GM, but could you explain how it is that he is lame and has “run into success?” Are you saying he has been lucky/fortunate? Are you saying he inherited a team that was already talented and therefore he shouldn’t get much credit for the team’s quality now(keep in mind he was assistant GM under Wade and Gillick)? Are you saying that the financial resources at his disposal mask his lack of talent? Also, I assume the Gonzalez trade you are referring to was Epstein’s of Adrian Gonzalez, not Cashman. I’m not disagreeing with you, I just want to know why you think that.
Actually, nevermind. It’s probably obnoxious of me to be asking someone to clarify something he said about Ruben Amaro Jr. in a post about the Rockies.
No depth?? Cosart, Valle, Singleton, Colvin, May…..
They have several blue chippers and alot of high upside depth in the minors after that. Sure they have traded alot of guys, but that doesn’t mean their farm isn’t excellent.
how can you rate Cashman and epstein objectively? I mean, let’s say you play monopoly but you start with twice as much cash as everyone else and you win 7/10 times. Are you a good player? Maybe, but we can’t be sure because you were supposed to win.
Like Showalter said, having more money to sign guys doesn’t make you smarter. It’s the guy who signs a 35 year old vet who goes 300/400/500 that’s the smart GM. Not the guy who signs 30 year old Carl Crawford and 27? year old Adrian Gonzalez.
I remember ESPN one time saying “one thing Cashman has done better than most GMs is claiming guys off the waiver wire so other competing teams can’t use them”. Really? That requires no intelligence whatsover.
So if you ask me, Epstein gets an average rating and Cash gets below average.
The Mets and Cubs have been doing quite well these past years with higher payrolls?
Having money and using it well are different things. If you know your advantage is money, do you get punished for using your advantage? Yankees have missed the playoffs once in the past 15 years? Even then they won 89 games. I am not a Yankees fan, but to call Cashman bad because he has the money money is quite silly.
Higher than average payrolls for the Mets/Cubs, not the Yankees.
as for the Phillies, does anyone doubt that Amaro’s success is because Gillick did such an amazing job at setting them up for success. You don’t really have to be all that good to take the Phillies after the 2008 World Series and succeed. Now Amaro has basically clung onto as many of those great players Gillick gave him and used his new found financial resources to sign no brainers. Too bad he has a shitload of money locked up now and their farm really isn’t that good. At least not “sustain division titles” good.
Amaro is a lot like Mozeliak in STL. Inherited a great situation and has ridden it to success (less so for Moz), but now appears the ride is just about over.
COL = btter than I thought.
Consider the two “faces of the franchis” (Holliday + Helton) are not the team stars anymore, bu the oganization keeps ROCKin.
This series, perhaps unintentionally, illustrates how important finances + division is. Here are plent of mediocre teams that go into each season with a decent chance due to the reduced level of their division quality.
I’m sure each of us can come up with a real-life analogy for one having to be “much better just to get to the same place”.
The discussion in this series has been pretty good.
Very true. You have 4 AL East teams in at least the top 8 and 2 of them won’t make the playoffs while a team in the 20’s like the Brewers or Dodgers probably have a better shot at making the playoffs than at least 2 of those teams.
Hey look, a comment about the relevant team and not which AL/NL East GM is better. Kudos to you sir.
garbage. this entire post neglected to mention how the rockies will have to face matt cain a couple of times this season.
so I can’t call Cashman a bad GM for using his money, but you can’t call him good either. You win when you’re supposed to win. That doesn’t make you good.