Read the methodology behind the ratings here. Remember that the grading scale is 20-80, with 50 representing league average.

2012 Organizational Rankings

#30 – Baltimore
#29 – Houston
#28 – Oakland
#27 – Pittsburgh
#26 – San Diego
#25 – Minnesota
#24 – Chicago AL
#23 – Seattle
#22 – Kansas City
#21 – Cleveland
#20 – New York Mets
#19 – Los Angeles Dodgers
#18 – Colorado
#17 — Miami
#16 — Diamondbacks
#15 — Cincinnati
#14 — Cubs
#13 — Milwaukee
#12 — San Francisco
#11 —  Washington

Tampa Bay’s 2011 Ranking: 4th

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Now that Joey Votto is signed with Cincinnati through his age 39 season, there’s a lot of talk about how long he can be expected to remain productive. The Reds are basically accepting that this deal will be an albatross at the end of the contract in order to secure premium years at reasonable prices in the first half of the deal. The discussion of the contract should not be whether Votto will be worth the money in 2021, 2022, or 2023 – he won’t be, in almost any scenario you can come up with – but by how much surplus value he’ll be able to create through 2020.

I have more thoughts on long term pricing valuations that I’ll share in the next day or two, but for now, I wanted to look at how productive other similar first baseman to Votto were in their age 28-39 seasons. To do this, I pulled every first baseman in history who had at least 2,000 plate appearances and a wRC+ between 142 to 161 from ages 24-27. Those are the ages that Votto has been a big leaguer for, and gives us a nice four year window leading up a player’s prime. Since Votto has a wRC+ of 152 and a WAR of 22.9 and all the players in the sample have a weighted average wRC+ of 150 and a WAR of 22.0, this group is almost identical in terms of recent performance to Votto at this point in his career.

Here’s the list of comparables, and their 24-27 performance:

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Dave Cameron laid out the methodology behind the rankings. Remember that the grading scale for each category is 20-80, with 50 representing league average.

2012 Organizational Rankings

#30 – Baltimore
#29 – Houston
#28 – Oakland
#27 – Pittsburgh
#26 – San Diego
#25 – Minnesota
#24 – Chicago AL
#23 – Seattle
#22 – Kansas City
#21 – Cleveland
#20 – New York NL
#19 – Los Angeles
#18 – Colorado
#17 – Miami
#16 – Arizona
#15 – Cincinnati
#14 – Chicago NL
#13 – Milwaukee
#12 – San Francisco

Washington’s 2011 Organizational Ranking – #24

2012 Outlook – 52 (T-15th)

The last time the Washington Nationals even sniffed a playoff berth was the first season they were the Washington Nationals: 2005. The move from Montreal was most unfortunate for those north of the border, but baseball in the District of Columbia was excited for baseball, as 2.7 million people filled the turnstiles to watch the Nationals. And they competed, holding first place for 53 games. Washington was even within three games of a wild card slot as late as September 17th, but a 4-9 finish doomed the first Nationals to an 81-81 final record. It is still the best effort the former Expos have managed.

No longer is it a question of if the Nationals can get over the .500 hump but when they will. Last year’s squad finished at 80-81 despite losing Stephen Strasburg for nearly the entire season and Ryan Zimmerman — the only holdover from that 2005 squad — played just 101 games. Bryce Harper time is on the horizon and could come as soon as this season. Mike Morse showed great potential as a power hitter and Wilson Ramos is a promising young catcher. There’s even a solid rotation behind Strasburg, featuring fellow youngster Jordan Zimmermann, blockbuster trade target Gio Gonzalez and free agent get Edwin Jackson. The bullpen headlined by Drew Storen and Tyler Clippard is strong as well. There’s a lot to like about this 2012 Washington Nationals team.

That said, they play in one of baseball’s deepest divisions and will have to compete with the Phillies, Braves and Marlins for NL East honors, and this is not a team without holes. Ian Desmond has struggled at shortstop for two years in a row. An Opening Day outfield of Roger Bernadina, Rick Ankiel and Jayson Werth (thanks to Morse’s injury) contains maybe one starter on a typical playoff roster, and Adam LaRoche’s best days are well behind him. These shortcomings will probably be too much for the Nationals to overcome in the National League’s most competitive division.

2013+ Outlook – 55 (T-9th)

The Nationals won’t have a young lineup this season — between Jayson Werth, Rick Ankiel, Adam LaRoche, Mark DeRosa and Xavier Nady, there’s plenty of age to go around. But almost all of the key pieces are 27 or younger — Ryan Zimmerman, Danny Espinosa, Wilson Ramos, Stephen Strasburg, Gio Gonzalez, Jordan Zimmermann, Drew Storen, Henry Clippard Henry Rodriguez, and Clippard. This is a core of young, cost-controlled players who will define the franchise for at least a few more years.

And then there’s the fruits of the early draft picks the Nationals have had thanks to their poor performances over the last few years. A few of those fruits went over to the Athletics in exchange for Gio Gonzalez, and so Washington’s farm system no longer showcases the depth it did in recent years. Still, it’s nearly impossible to beat what the Natoinals have at the top in Bryce Harper and 2011 first rounders Anthony Rendon and Alex Meyer.

The lack of depth is one thing that pushes the Nationals’ ranking down to merely ninth, but if some of their lesser prospects — think Steve Lombardozzi or Destin Hood, among others — can develop into useful parts at the major league level, they’ll be able to produce one of the majors’ deepest young teams over the next three seasons.

Financial Resources – 54 (T-8th)

The Nationals haven’t been a big-payroll club since they’ve moved from Montreal — where revenues were ever dwindling along with the Olympic Stadium crowds — but salaries in the nation’s capital are on the rise. The Nationals have $83 million in obligations for 2012 according to Cot’s Contracts, up $29 million from just five years ago. They’ll need to keep increasing payroll in order to retain all the young talent on hand — they’ve already handed out a $100 million extension to Ryan Zimmerman to go with Jayson Werth’s $121 million deal.

Luckily, they’ll have some time. Desmond, Storen, Espinosa and Ramos haven’t even hit arbitration yet. Zimmermann and Clippard are just in their first season. Strasburg is already paid on a major league deal — $4.875 million for this season — but will have four seasons of arbitration (likely a Super Two in 2013) remaining. Gonzalez also is paid on an arbitration scale in his five year, $42 million deal — it doesn’t hit eight figures until 2015.

With Forbes ranking the Nationals as the 16th-most valuable franchise in baseball — largely due to market size — there’s reason to believe the Nationals can get the revenue they’ll need to keep a significant portion of this core around. Especially if they start winning.

Baseball Operations – 46 (T-20th)

Mike Rizzo has brought in one big time free agent, that of course being Jayson Werth and his massive contract. As the Nationals were also in on Mark Teixeira, it wouldn’t surprise if the move was a mandate from ownership to bring in a highly visible free agent.

His action in free agency has been otherwise minimal — small veteran pieces like Rick Ankiel and Ivan Rodriguez and Chien-Ming Wang that hardly give us enough of a look to truly judge his talent evaluating abilities. He’s also made one huge trade, sending four top prospects out for Gio Gonzalez. It is a move that has been met with mixed reactions, as Gonzalez can be a polarizing pitcher. Yes, he’s been excellent the last two years, particularly in the lens of ERA, but it’s impossible to ignore his propensity for the walk. Again, Rizzo hasn’t really made enough moves for us to get to know him well.

In the other aspect, drafting, Rizzo and the Nationals have done well with the cards dealt to them, getting Stephen Strasburg to the majors and infusing the organization with top talent like Harper and Rendon. The tougher tests will come as the Nationals have to draft in the double digits in the first round, but prior to the Gonzalez deal the Nationals had developed a deep system thanks to players beyond those early draft picks like Derek Norris and A.J. Cole (both fourth round picks).

The Werth contract will be a black mark on Rizzo until (and perhaps beyond) the time the Nationals are a winning franchise. Part of that is simply because his team hasn’t had to make many hard decisions with Rizzo in the front office. As the Nationals approach relevancy on the field, Rizzo will need to prove the Werth deal was an exception, not the rule.

A large number of prospects changed hands this past off-season as teams jumped at the opportunities to acquire some promising young stars. Some of those prospects have a good chance to one day make their former teams regret sending them packing. Let’s have a look at a few of them:

1. Jose Campos, RHP: Sophomore right-hander Michael Pineda was the key target in the swap with Seattle that sent rookie catcher Jesus Montero west but Campos, 19 years old and ready for low-A ball, could really swing this trade in New York’s favor if he develops as hoped. The prospect is still a long way away from reaching his potential but he has the stuff to develop into a No. 1 or 2 starter. He’s definitely not the type of arm you usually get as a throw-in to a deal and the Yankees organization has a strong history of player development. Montero is the type of player that you don’t mind giving up a lot of value for (assuming he also reaches his potential) but the loss of two top starters could really end up stinging (even more than the likes of Jose Cruz Jr., Chris Tillman/Adam Jones, Brandon Morrow).

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Dave Cameron laid out the methodology behind the rankings. Remember that the grading scale for each category is 20-80, with 50 representing league average.

2012 Organizational Rankings

#30 – Baltimore
#29 – Houston
#28 – Oakland
#27 – Pittsburgh
#26 – San Diego
#25 – Minnesota
#24 – Chicago AL
#23 – Seattle
#22 – Kansas City
#21 – Cleveland
#20 – New York NL
#19 – Los Angeles
#18 – Colorado
#17 – Miami
#16 – Arizona
#15 – Cincinnati
#14 – Chicago NL
#13 – Milwaukee 

San Francisco’s 2011 Organizational Ranking – #12

2012 Outlook: 54 (14th)

Last season, the Giants were the defending World Series Champions. This season, they’re trying to get back to the playoffs.

Since Barry Bonds‘ last year with the Giants in 2007, San Francisco has been all about pitching, pitching, pitching. Tim Lincecum and Matt Cain have been an outstanding 1-2 punch at the top of the rotation. Madison Bumgarner, just 22 years told, was pivotal in the 2010 playoffs and is poised to have a huge season. Ryan Vogelsong is back after his “comeback from out of the blue” year in 2011. And then there’s the $126 million man: Barry Zito, fifth starter.

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Table of Contents
Here’s the table of contents for today’s edition of Daily Notes.

1. Select Televised Games
2. Lightly Annotated Video: Chris Sale vs. the Dodgers
3. SCOUT Leaderboards: Spring Training Pitchers

Select Televised Games
The best games on MLB.TV today, or your money back. Seriously, all of it.

Atlanta Futures at Atlanta | 19:05 ET
This game features the Braves major-league team versus a team of Braves prospects. Left-hander Mike Minor, who has a 19:14 K:BB in 24.0 innings this spring, starts for the senior team. The roster for the Futures team is available here, courtesy MiLB.com, and features left-hander Sean Gilmartin (ranked fifth in the organization by our Marc Hulet), Christian Bethancourt (seventh), Edward Salcedo (eighth), etc.

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The feud between Ubaldo Jimenez and Troy Tulowitzki reached a tipping point this past weekend. After an off-season in which the two took shots at each other through the media, Jimenez hit Tulowitzki with a fastball during a Spring Training game and nearly caused a brawl. While no one was ejected during the game, Bud Selig — who was there — took matters into his own hands. After Selig reviewed the incident, he suspended Jimenez for five days. While Major League Baseball may be trying to curb violence in the game, it’s unclear whether this was the right decision.

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Well, I think we’ve just seen the first piece of fallout from the stunning $2.15 billion purchase of the Dodgers on Wednesday. With money flowing into MLB at a breakneck pace, the Cincinnati Reds decided to make star first baseman Joey Votto an offer he couldn’t refuse. Actually, they made him an offer that no player in baseball could refuse, signing him (per Bob Nightengale of USA Today) to the longest contract in the history of the game — a staggering 12-year, $251.5 million commitment (or, phrased differently, a 10-year extension on top of the 2/26 he had already agreed to) that will keep Votto in Cincinnati through the 2023 season.

For as much as the Albert Pujols and Prince Fielder contracts helped shape the off-season, this is the deal that could have long lasting effects going forward. First baseman have been getting monster contracts in free agency for years, and in both cases, there were some special circumstances that set their particular case apart; Pujols is one of the great players in the history of the game, while Fielder certainly benefited from Victor Martinez’s torn ACL, which didn’t occur until after most other options were already off the table. Free agents trying to use these deals as yardsticks for future negotiations would not stack up to Pujols resume, nor would they likely reap the rewards of a high-payroll team suddenly needing their services just weeks before spring training begins.

This contract for Votto, though, doesn’t come with any of those caveats, and it didn’t come through an intense bidding war in free agency. This is the third-largest contract in baseball history being given to a player who was two years away from free agency. This deal just blows up the expected compensation level for premium players negotiating with only their own franchise.

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A couple of hours ago, the Giants announced that they reached an agreement with Matt Cain on a five year deal worth just over $110 million. Wendy Thurm has already recapped the contract and why this is probably fair market value for a quality pitcher with no health problems headed into his age 27 season. And, she’s probably right – if the Giants wanted to keep Cain, they weren’t going to be able to do it for less than this. This isn’t a situation where they just overpaid irrationally. Their options were either to sign him for this price or watch him get more money from another team next winter. They chose the former.

I would have chosen the latter.

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It appears as though, after a spring’s worth of uncertainty, the Atlanta Braves have decided on an Opening Day shortstop, with the news this afternoon (courtesy David O’Brien of the Atlanta Journal Constitution) that the club has assigned defensive wunderkind Andrelton Simmons to minor-league camp, leaving Tyler Pastornicky with the job.

To which level, precisely, Simmons has been sent remains to be seen, but there are options available to the Braves: given his age (22) and previous high level (High-A Lynchburg), an assigment to Double-A wouldn’t (nor should it) be regarded as a slight to Simmons’ skill level or potential. There’s certainly reason to believe that — aside from whatever he showed the coaching staff and front office this spring — that Pastornicky’s experience in the high minors (672 plate appearances between Double- and Triple-A) was instrumental in helping him to secure the starting spot to break camp. There’s also reason to believe that exposure to more advanced pitching would help Simmons’ refine his offensive game.

So, even if Simmons were to spend the entirety of 2012 in the minors, it likely wouldn’t represent any kind of misstep on the part of the Braves.

That said, with Simmons, there are three points always to consider:

1. Defense is his primary skill.

2. His defensive skill — even if coupled with merely replacement-level offense — probably makes him an average major leaguer right now.

3. Defense peaks earlier than other skills — probably around 25 or so.

In light of the facts, it’s probably fair to say that the window on Andrelton Simmons’ major-league career is a slightly different one than we see for many prospects, with the beginning of his peak set to arrive as soon as now. Because a lot of his value is derived from defensive play — that, coupled with the fact that his offensive ceiling is probably limited by a lack of power upside — Simmons will likely never be much more valuable than he will by, say, the middle or end of the 2012 season.