Today, we keep looking at some teams that have legitimate hope, so it gets harder from here on out. And, for those of you who haven’t seen the previous parts (which are linked below), keep in mind that this is a forward looking exercise – we are evaluating clubs on their overall ability to contend for a World Series title in the future. We are not evaluating how they have performed historically. This is about the health of each organization going forward.

Rankings So Far

#30: Washington Nationals
#29: Florida Marlins
#28: Houston Astros
#27: Kansas City Royals
#26: Pittsburgh Pirates
#25: San Diego Padres
#24: Cincinnati Reds
#23: Colorado Rockies

#22: Detroit Tigers

Ownership: C

Over the years, Mike Ilitch has provided significant capital to provide his team with a big market budget. He has a reputation for being a bit too hands on, but that hasn’t manifest itself in any real ways over the last couple of years. To boot, the Tigers have a new ballpark that generates solid revenues for them. So why the low grade? The economy. Of all the cities in America, Detroit is the one with the most uncertain future, as the fate of the automakers continues to be a day-to-day thing. Michigan has the highest unemployment rate in the country, and they’re feeling the brunt of the recession more so than any other state. Given the way the economy is going, especially in Detroit, it’s hard to see the Tigers being able to sustain the payrolls they’ve been running for the last few years. If they are forced to cut back on salaries, they’d have some tough decisions to make, as a huge part of their payroll is tied up in players with negative trade value. The only way for them to slash payroll quickly would be trade the likes of Magglio Ordonez and Miguel Cabrera, and a Tigers team that is forced to move those two in salary dumps is just not very good.

Front Office: B-

Dave Dombrowski will never be mistaken for one of the new, Ivy league type GMs. He believes in tools, scouting, and gut feelings. But he’s really good at it. He has a terrific eye for talent, and he knows how to put together a roster. However, his old school leanings have led him down some paths of poor decisions – he’s too quick to give long term contracts to aging players and pitchers, and those decisions have put the Tigers in a budgetary bind. Given the necessary resources, he can build a championship team, but some mistakes on his part may be part of the reason that he might not have the necessary resources going forward.

Major League Roster: B-

This is still an impressive core of position player talent that Dombrowski has assembled. Curtis Granderson is a terrific player, Placido Polanco is one of the more underrated players in the game, Ordonez/Cabrera/Guillen is still a fierce middle of the order, and Inge/Laird/Everett should provide enough defensive value to make up for their weak bats. But oh, the pitching. Jeremy Bonderman’s elbow still hurts. Dontrelle Willis still can’t throw strikes. Nate Robertson is struggling to beat out a 20-year-old for the #5 spot in the rotation after posting an ugly ERA in 2008. Justin Verlander is very good, but it gets pretty ugly pretty fast once his turn in the rotation is done. The combination of a questionable pitching staff and an aging group of position players puts the Tigers in a tough spot – their window to win is still open for 2009, but maybe not for 2010, and they might not have enough arms to get to the playoffs this year. If they have to rebuild, Granderson, Verlander, and Porcello are a good nucleus, but there’s not enough young talent around them to do it quickly.

Minor League Talent: D

Rick Porcello is a terrific arm, but doesn’t come without questions. Even with his sinking fastball and groundball rate, 5.2 K/9 in the Florida State League is a little disconcerting. But once you get past him, it gets ugly in a hurry. Almost all of their premium talent was traded away in the Cabrera deal, and what’s left is lower ceiling role player prospects. They just lack prospects that could legitimately replace some of their aging major league core, and besides Porcello, they don’t have any good arms to bolster the pitching ranks. It’s a farm system in bad shape, and for a team headed towards rebuilding, that’s a rough combination.

Overall: C+

In a better economy, or a different city, they’d be more in the 12-17 range, because the major league roster is still pretty good, and the guys in charge are dedicated to winning and know how to build a roster. But the combination of economic hardships in their home state, some really bad contracts on the books, expected decline from key players, and a lack of depth puts the Tigers in a position where the franchise has a lot of downside. It could get bad in a hurry, and take a long time to fix. Of course, with a few savvy moves and some good fortune, they could also be throwing a parade in November, so it’s not all doom and gloom. But there’s more risk involved with the Tigers future than pretty much any other club, and that possibility weighs down their future chances for success.

Today, we start looking at some teams that have legitimate hope, so it gets harder from here on out. And, for those of you who haven’t seen the previous parts (which are linked below), keep in mind that this is a forward looking exercise – we are evaluating clubs on their overall ability to contend for a World Series title in the future. We are not evaluating how they have performed historically. This is about the health of each organization going forward.

Rankings So Far

#30: Washington Nationals
#29: Florida Marlins
#28: Houston Astros
#27: Kansas City Royals
#26: Pittsburgh Pirates
#25: San Diego Padres
#24: Cincinnati Reds

#23: Colorado Rockies

Ownership: C-

The Rockies ownership has faced several significant financial problems in the past, ranging from the need to post calls for cash from minority owners to cutting payroll down to small market levels. Despite a beautiful stadium and a city that has shown that it will support a winner, the Rockies operate on a fairly strict budget that restricts the team’s ability to contend. They’ve increased the salary load they’ve been willing to take over the last couple of years, but that still didn’t keep them from trading away Matt Holliday in lieu of signing him to a long term extension. The Rockies face some unique challenges in dealing with baseball at altitude, and having to get by on a low end budget doesn’t help.

Front Office: C

Dan O’Dowd is a man with a lot of ideas. Some of them are very good, while others are a bit more questionable. Overall, he’s showed an ability to identify talent, but in trying to solve the Coors Field problems, the approach has been to throw spaghetti at the wall. They tried high priced left-handed pitchers, to disastrous results. They tried strikeout pitchers who would limit balls in play. Now, they’re trying groundball pitchers, assembling a staff of sinkerball starters who will hopefully limit home runs. In the end, though, it doesn’t appear that the organization is committed to a direction, but instead react to whether their experiments work or fail. Baseball in Denver is certainly different than the rest of the game, but the Rockies need to figure out how to use that to their advantage, and they haven’t been able to do so as of yet.

Major League Talent: B-

It’s easy to forget that this team was in the World Series two years ago. There is talent here, and a healthy Troy Tulowitzki will solve a lot of problems. But is there enough talent on the roster to keep up in the NL West? Todd Helton’s a good player with a horrible contract. Aaron Cook and Ubaldo Jimenez are good pitchers, but probably not as good as they looked last year. They lost Brian Fuentes and Holliday over the winter, plus Jeff Francis will miss the entire year to an injury. In short, Tulowitzki just doesn’t have enough help, and the team needs to add a few more impact players.

Minor League Talent: B-

Dexter Fowler is one of those impact players that the team needs, and he should be ready sooner than later. Having him patrol center field could be a shot in the arm similar to the one the team got from Tulowitzki in 2007. Jhoulys Chacin fits into their good groundball pitcher mold and gives the team two elite prospects. After that, it levels off to lower upside guys (Seth Smith, Christian Friedrich, Casey Weathers) or prospects far from the majors (Wilin Rosario, Hector Gomez). It’s a decent, but not great, system that should provide a couple of solid assets for the Rockies long term. They could use a few more than they have, though.

Overall C+

There’s just a lot of ifs here. If the Rockies can figure out how to get all their talented players on the field at the same time, and if Dexter Fowler has a terrific rookie year, and if Franklin Morales figures out his mechanics, and if they can replace Fuentes in the bullpen, and if Helton’s back doesn’t go out, this could be a pretty decent team. Of course, the odds of all those things happening aren’t very good, as you have to plan for what’s probable, not what’s possible. There is a good group of young, cost-controlled talent in place, but for the Rockies to win consistently, they’re going to have to figure out how to retain their best players or develop some more good ones internally. Right now, they’re kind of stuck in the middle.

Today, we move out of the bottom five, and start looking at some teams that have legitimate hope, so it gets harder from here on out. And, for those of you who haven’t seen the previous parts (which are linked below), keep in mind that this is a forward looking exercise – we are evaluating clubs on their overall ability to contend for a World Series title in the future. We are not evaluating how they have performed historically. This is about the health of each organization going forward.

Rankings So Far

#30: Washington Nationals
#29: Florida Marlins
#28: Houston Astros
#27: Kansas City Royals
#26: Pittsburgh Pirates
#25: San Diego Padres

#24: Cincinnati Reds

Ownership:: B-

The Reds have transferred hands more often than most baseball franchises, but under Bob Castellini, they finally have some stability. They’ve increased their payroll since moving into the new park and have a budget that would support a contending team. They’ve attempted to re-establish a connection with the fanbase, going so far as having Castellini publish an open letter to the fan base apologizing for last year’s team and promising better results in the future. That said, there been some snags along the way. Castellini mishandled the GM situation by hiring own friend Walt Jocketty to serve as an adviser while keeping former GM Wayne Krivsky theoretically in charge. It became pretty obvious, however, that his days were numbered, and he was fired a few weeks into the ’08 season. Not really the best way of handling that transition.

Front Office: C

This is going to seem like a harsh grade for someone with as good of a reputation as Jocketty, but while he’s certainly got some strengths as a talent evaluator, he brings a bit of baggage as well. When the Cardinals attempted to join the 21st century of analytics, he wasn’t very receptive to the ideas of Jeff Luhnow and helped create a divide in the St. Louis front office that eventually led to him leaving. He’s fairly set in his ways, and while the Reds could use some advancement in their analytical techniques, they aren’t likely to come while Jocketty is in charge. He’ll do a pretty good job of putting together a roster, but he’s not going to create sustainable long term advantages that can make up for their mid-market payroll size.

Major League Roster: B-

The core of a really good team is in place. Jay Bruce, Brandon Phillips, Joey Votto, Edinson Volquez, Johnny Cueto – that’s a very good group of players to build around for the future. And there’s some ancillary talents that could still make an impact as well – guys like Homer Bailey, Edwin Encarnacion (if they’d just move him to LF already), and Jeff Keppinger could make positive contributions above what their track record shows. The question, though, is what direction do they want to go in? On their face, this team isn’t good enough to contend in 2009, but they’ve got significant assets tied to Aaron Harang, Bronson Arroyo, and Francisco Cordero, who are just better fits for a contender than a rebuilder. But if they trade those guys, then there isn’t enough good talent around the young core to avoid a lot of losses. It’s something of a dilemma that Jocketty and company will have to figure out.

Minor League Talent: C

Yonder Alonso is a terrific young player, but he also presents a problem for an organization that already has Joey Votto and lacks the option of a DH. You’d like your best prospect to not be blocked by one of your best young players, ideally. Beyond him, Todd Frazier can hit but no one is sure where he should play (I vote for third base, personally), and while Drew Stubbs has done a great job of making better contact, there are still questions about just how much he’s going to hit in the majors. There’s virtually no upper level pitching in the system, either, which makes it tough to replace Harang and Arroyo if they do decide that dealing them is the way to go.

Overall: C+

There’s actually a pretty big gap here between the Reds and Padres, so don’t look at their placements next to each other on the list and think that I’m saying that they’re in comparable shape. Trying to sort out the next ten franchises was tough, and the Reds are closer to being in the top 15 than they are to being 30th, even though they land at #24. With a good ownership group, a good young core of talent, a new ballpark, and a GM who is fairly adept at building a major league roster, there are things going right in Cincinnati. Can they consistently contend in the NL Central going forward without upgrading their analytical departments and having a mid-level payroll? I’m not sure, and that’s why the end up here.

Today, we round out the bottom five in our organizational rankings series. And, for those of you who haven’t seen the first four parts (which are linked below), keep in mind that this is a forward looking exercise – we are evaluating clubs on their overall ability to contend for a World Series title in the future. We are not evaluating how they have performed historically. This is about the health of each organization going forward.

Rankings So Far

#30: Washington Nationals
#29: Florida Marlins
#28: Houston Astros
#27: Kansas City Royals
#26: Pittsburgh Pirates

#25: San Diego Padres

Ownership: N/A

Thanks to a messy divorce, long time owner John Moores was forced to sell the team this winter to a group of investors led by Jeff Moorad, and the sale is expected to be finalized in the next few weeks. The Padres will almost certainly be run differently, but exactly how it looks, no one really knows. Moorad has already said that he’s going to be replacing Sandy Alderson as CEO, and Alderson will be leaving the organization. This is an ownership group in transition, and we just don’t have enough information to give them any kind of grade. I will, note, however, that it’s at least got the appearance of shadiness that Moorad was allowed to enter an agreement to buy the Padres while employed by the Diamondbacks. Even if there wasn’t a conflict of interest, it sure looks like there was. Seems to me that could have been handled better.

Front Office: B-

Kevin Towers is a smart, likable guy, and currently the longest tenured GM in the game. He’s done a pretty good job building the Padres into a solid team without significant capital, and overall, you’d have to describe his tenure as a success. However, there’s some serious question marks about how the team will be run going forward. With Alderson on the way out, does he take Asst. GM Paul DePodesta with him? Can Towers avoid being fired if the team struggles in 2009, especially with new ownership? This is not a baseball operations department built on pillars of stone.

Major League Talent: C-

PETCO Park skews a lot of the perceptions about the talent on the Padres roster – the pitchers aren’t as good as advertised, and the hitters are a bit better than everyone thinks. But even with the park adjustments, the Padres scored 637 runs last year while getting a career year from Jody Gerut and an excellent age-37 season from Brian Giles. Regression needs to be expected from both, and there just isn’t much in the way of run production for the Padres outside of those two and Adrian Gonzalez. Chase Headley is a solid enough young player, but when he represents the hopes of your future line-up, things aren’t great. The club really should have sold high on Jake Peavy this winter, as now they have to hope he stays healthy, pitches well, and they can get comparable offers at the deadline. Even in a mediocre NL West, it’s hard to see this team contending for a playoff spot, and it’s not a roster that’s going to get better.

Minor League Talent: C-

This is a system with a bunch of polarizing prospects. Some people see Matt Antonelli as a potential all-star second baseman, while others think he’s more of an average-at-everything kind of guy. Some people are in love with Kyle Blanks‘ power, while others wonder where an NL team is going to play him. There aren’t any position prospects here that everyone loves, and the ranks of the pitching prospects are full of guys who throw 87 MPH and try to get by on smarts. It isn’t a horrible farm system, but it’s not a very good one either, and for a team in need of a talent injection, that’s a problem.

Overall: C

The Padres are a tough team to judge because of the transition period they find themselves in. Without knowing what kind of owner Moorad will be, how the front office will shake out under his leadership, and whether they’re going to try to rebuild or take a last shot at winning with the Peavy-Giles combination makes this perhaps the most uncertain franchise in baseball. If you’re a glass half full guy, you can hold onto the fact that the D’Backs were very well ran while Moorad was in Arizona, and that the front office is full of guys who could run a team well. If you’re a glass half empty guy, then you see an organization that lacks talent, has only a couple of really valuable players (two of whom have full no-trade clauses), and who plays in a division with two teams that are better, younger, and have greater revenue steams. I have a feeling that San Diego is in for some tough times ahead.

Today, we round out the bottom five in our organizational rankings series. And, for those of you who haven’t seen the first four parts (which are linked below), keep in mind that this is a forward looking exercise – we are evaluating clubs on their overall ability to contend for a World Series title in the future. We are not evaluating how they have performed historically. This is about the health of each organization going forward.

Rankings So Far

#30: Washington Nationals
#29: Florida Marlins
#28: Houston Astros
#27: Kansas City Royals

#26: Pittsburgh Pirates

Ownership: B-

Under the old Kevin McClatchy regime, the Pirates were about as poorly run as any team in baseball. However, with Robert Nutting taking over the franchise in 2007 and bringing Frank Coonelly in to serve as the team president, the team has made significant strides in investing in the franchise with an eye towards winning. Their stadium is one of the nicest in the game, and with a winning product, should support a mid-level payroll. It will take a while to undo the disaster that was the McClatchy era, but the new ownership group is on the right path.

Front Office: B-

Among a Cleveland front office brimming with talent, Neil Huntington was often the forgotten man, living in the shadow of Chris Antonetti. However, since being hired as the Pirates GM, he’s shown that he’s brought a lot of valuable experience with him from the Indians model, and has worked extensively to upgrade the Pirates decision making processes. From hiring analysts like Dan Fox to modernizing the databases they have to compile information, Pittsburgh made a 180 degree turn from where they were under previous administrations. The Pirates were in rough shape when he took over, so a quick reload was out of the question, but Huntington has the Pirates headed in the right direction.

Major League Talent: D

When the Pirates decided that they didn’t want to invest in a long term deal for Jason Bay, they traded the only player on the roster who could be described as a star. The rest of the talent is a mixture of average-ish role players who will keep the team from being awful but won’t push it towards contention. Players like Adam LaRoche, Freddy Sanchez, Nate McLouth, Paul Maholm, and Ryan Doumit are valuable enough players, but not the kind of championship core that you can build a winner around. There’s just limited upside with practically everyone on the roster, and while Huntington has done a good job picking up cheap stopgaps to hold down the fort until they develop some long term solutions, a roster full of +1 to +2 win players isn’t a foundation for long term success.

Minor League Talent: C

In contrast to the major league roster, there’s quite a bit of upside on the farm. Pedro Alvarez is one of the game’s best young hitters and worth every penny the Pirates paid him. Andrew McCutchen combines solid-enough offense with good defense in center field, and Jose Tabata intrigues with his offensive potential at such a young age. However, with higher reward often comes higher risk, and all these guys have some questions to answer – will Alvarez stay in good enough shape to be a reasonable defensive player? Can McCutchen hit for enough power to put some fear into opposing pitchers? Can Tabata put together a performance worthy of his tools for a full season? The star potential is certainly welcome, but the system is a bit thin on sure things (other than Alvarez’s bat) and is a bit lacking in depth.

Overall: C-

For Pirates fans, there is finally a light at the end of the tunnel. The problem, though, is that the tunnel is a few miles long thanks to the brutal work done by the previous front office. While the new ownership and organizational philosophies should eventually lead to the Pirates returning to respectability, they just don’t have a lot on hand to work with. Patience is going to be required of Pirates fans, because a real contender isn’t in the cards for the next few years. But, with a strong blueprint in place, once they get good, they could stay good for quite a while.

Solidering on in our series breaking down each organization from worst to best.

Rankings So Far

#30: Washington Nationals
#29: Florida Marlins
#28: Houston Astros

#27: Kansas City Royals

Ownership: D

During David Glass’ tenure as the owner of the Royals, the team has operated with one of the smaller budgets in baseball, and while it has grown in recent years, the Royals are still one of the lesser spenders in baseball. They don’t have the revenue streams that larger market cities have, and will not be operating on a level playing field with those teams anytime soon. While Glass isn’t the meddler that Peter Angelos or Drayton McLane are, his hand is still too heavily involved in the direction of the baseball operations department.

Front Office: D

Dayton Moore came to Kansas City with a sterling reputation for talent evaluation from his time with the Atlanta Braves. His hiring was supposed to signify a new and better way of doing things for the Royals. Since taking over, Moore has made a long series of moves that have significantly tarnished his reputation and harmed the future of the franchise. The team has taken a spread-the-wealth approach to free agency, throwing a decent amount of money at a lot of average or worse players, wasting precious resources that could have easily been better spent on other players or in player development. Instead of maximizing their return on investment, as other small market teams have successfully done, the Royals have bought mediocrity on the free market, and failed to improve their team’s chances of winning in the process.

Major League Talent: C

There are good players in Kansas City, but like with the other teams at the bottom of these rankings, just not enough. Zack Greinke, David DeJesus, and Alex Gordon could all play for any team in baseball. Gil Meche has been a very pleasant surprise since signing as a free agent. Joakim Soria is one of the best closers in the game. But, the supporting cast is just not very good. The Jose Guillen signing was a disaster, and the acquisitions of guys like Mike Jacobs, Kyle Farnsworth, and Willie Bloomquist are just lateral moves that only serve to eat up payroll and waste roster spots.

Minor League Talent: C

Recent first round picks Eric Hosmer and Mike Moustakas provide legitimate impact bats for Kansas City’s future, but the dropoff after those two is fairly steep. There are some interesting arms behind those two, such as Dan Cortes and Tim Melville, but they aren’t the kinds of prospects that you like to see in your top five, especially for a rebuilding franchise. Having two premium position players is nice, but the depth just isn’t there. Much like the major league roster, there just aren’t enough good players here.

Overall: C-

The Royals are a clear step ahead of the previous three teams, but still have an awful lot of work to do before they could ever be considered a legitimate World Series contender. Unfortunately, the moves the team has been making over the last year don’t inspire an awful lot of confidence that the team is going to make the necessary transition in philosophy, and filling out the roster with replacement level veterans is simply never going to work. With a smaller paryoll, they have to emulate the Cleveland/Oakland/Minnesota/Atlanta philosophies of getting big returns on small invetments, and right now, that’s just not happening in Kansas City.

Today, we continue on with the organization rankings. Before we do that, though, a couple quick notes.

1. This is not a review of how teams have performed in the past. This is a forward looking exercise. You can disagree with the ratings all you want, but you should understand that we’re not retroactively grading how teams have done prior to 2009 – we’re talking about how well they are equipped to contend for a World Series title going forward.

2. The overall grade at the end of each piece is not an average of the four subsection grades. These problems compound on top of each other in a multiplicative effect. When you multiply decimals, the product is smaller than the average of the parts. Same thing here.

Rankings So Far

#30: Washington Nationals
#29: Florida Marlins

#28: Houston Astros

Ownership: C-

Drayton McLane is a well capitalized man, ranked by Forbes in 2008 as the 301st richest person in America, so the Astros have enjoyed the ability to spend liberally on their major league payroll during his tenure as the team’s owner. However, while he provides enough money for the team to have a contender’s budget, that financing comes with strings attached, as he’s simply too involved in the decisions that should be left up to the baseball operations department. Micromanaging ownership is a significant barrier to overcome, and until McLane takes a more hands off approach, the Astros are going to have to overcome his meddling.

Front Office:: C

In an era where almost every team with a GM opening has gone with a first time hire, looking for someone who can combine traditional analysis with many of the advances made in the last ten years, the Astros decided that Ed Wade was the man to lead their organization forward, despite a pretty mediocre track record in Philadephia and a decidedly old school philosophy. Wade has some strengths in talent evaluation, but his ability to put together a championship roster is in question. As baseball moves forward in analytical processes, the Astros current front office is getting left behind.

Major League Talent: C+

Lance Berkman is a superstar. Roy Oswalt is a very good pitcher. Carlos Lee can hit. Wandy Rodriguez is a solid pitcher who flies under the radar. Hunter Pence is one of the better 25-year-old players in the game. But the dropoff after the top tier of talent is pretty substantial, and half the team’s payroll is tied up in their four highest paid players. The lack of quality young talent on the roster is problematic going forward. Even if the team committed to rebuilding, it would be nearly impossible to trade Miguel Tejada, and the return for guys like Carlos Lee would be minimal in this economic environment. Berkman and Oswalt both have full no trade rights. The team is stuck, in a lot of ways, with the roster it has, and that roster is both not good enough to contend and declining in ability by the year. That’s a bad middle ground to be in.

Minor League Talent: F

The Astros farm system is the worst in the game, bar none. Jason Castro is the top talent in the system, but even his upside is limited, as he profiles more as a good catcher but not a star. Beyond that, it’s rough – Brian Bogusevic has made a remarkably quick transformation from failed pitcher to intriguing outfielder, but like with Castro, there’s very little star potential. Jordan Lyles is about as far from the major leagues as any team’s best pitching prospect in recent memory. The team just lacks impact talent on the farm, and since they overachieved in 2008, they won’t even have the benefit of high draft choices this summer. It could be years before the Astros have something resembling another home grown nucleus coming through their system.

Overall: D

Their desire to be perpetual contenders over the last decade is coming back to haunt them, as the club isn’t talented enough to contend for a World Series, lacks the ability to rebuild quickly, and has the worst farm system in the game. By all rights, they need to start over, but they’re limited in their ability to do so. Berkman and Oswalt are good enough to keep them from being utterly horrible, but there’s just not enough around them to make an actually good team, and the front office isn’t adept enough at adding undervalued talent to build a championship roster around their stars. As those two decline, so will the Astros organization, and it could be a while before we see them in October again.

Continuing on with the organizational rankings series, which kicked off this afternoon. Due to popular demand, I’m going to add in a section on ownership, which will cover the team’s financial health as well as the qualities of the upper level executives not in the baseball operations department.

Rankings So Far

#30: Washington Nationals

#29: Florida Marlins

Ownership: F

What can I say about Jeff Loria? He almost single-handedly dismantled baseball in Montreal, ran the Expos into the ground, and then conspired with Bud Selig to pull off a deal that saw him sell the Expos to MLB and he took ownership of the Florida Marlins. Since then, he’s run the Marlins as a glorified farm team for the rest of baseball, offering little financial support to the baseball operations department and giving them a shoestring budget that requires them to dump almost every last bit of talent from the organization once they become eligible for salary arbitration. As he did in Montreal, he’s focused on getting a new stadium from the local government, and will put no effort into fielding a contending team until the city complies. At this point, he’s in the running for the title of worst baseball owner of all time. And he doesn’t appear to be going anywhere.

Front Office: B-

Larry Beinfest and company actually do pretty good work, considering what they are given to work with. They scout well, and continue to unearth useful players on the cheap. His acquisition of Hanley Ramirez has worked out better than even he could have imagined, and by surrounding Ramirez with guys like Dan Uggla (Rule 5 draft), Jorge Cantu (minor league free agent), and Cody Ross (acquired for cash), the Marlins were able to field a respectable offense while getting by on a payroll of approximately $0. They’ve sacrificed a lot of defense in the process, however, and the formula will never result in a World Championship, but it’s probably as good as anyone could do, given the circumstances.

Major League Talent: B-

Last summer, we ranked Ramirez as the second most valuable commodity in baseball. The Marlins have their young superstar locked up long term, but with their payroll, they’ll continue to struggle to get enough good position players around him. There is some talent there, with Uggla and Jeremy Hermida providing some offense and Cameron Maybin looking like a potential top of the order hitter and center fielder, but it’s the pitching staff that will carry this team. Ricky Nolasco is an all-star in the making, and it’s tough to find a better group of arms than Josh Johnson, Chris Volstad, Andrew Miller, and Anibal Sanchez rounding out the rotation. That’s an extremely talented group, but there’s significant health questions with almost all of them, and the Marlins defense won’t do them any favors. But, with a few good hitters and some good arms, this is a team that should win about as often as they lose, and has some upside beyond that.

Minor League Talent: B+

There’s some serious upside down on the farm. Mike Stanton has as much raw power as any prospect in the game, and Logan Morrison, Kyle Skipworth, and Matt Dominguez are all among the better prospects in the game at their respective positions. Gaby Sanchez and Chris Coghlan provide some more polished, lower upside depth, and Sean West, Ryan Tucker, and Jose Ceda give the team some more good arms on the way. Player development is the strength of the Marlins organization, and they continue to excel in this area.

Overall: D

Ownership screws the whole situation up here, as the rest of the franchise actually performs pretty well. With a better owner committed to winning baseball and developing some positive revenue streams, the Marlins could be a force in the NL East. Instead, the good work of their baseball people is wasted as the team acts as a conduit to shift talent to other major league clubs. The Marlins are getting a lot of stuff right, but the overriding direction of the organization is not towards winning, and that cripples the overall health of the organization.

Today, I’m kicking off a new series – over the next three weeks, we’ll rank all thirty MLB organizations, but rather than doing it just by some portion of their franchise (whether major league talent, minor league talent, front office talent, etc…), we’ll do an all encompassing overview of where each major league club stands. The following list should be viewed as something like organizational health, top to bottom.

Today, we kick off the list with the franchise that has more work to do to get back on track than any other in baseball.

#30: Washington Nationals

Front Office: D-

This was an F before Jim Bowden left. With him out of the picture, there’s a door open for the franchise to start making moves to send the team in the right direction. Unfortunately, Stan Kasten doesn’t seem to be walking through the door. A new general manager could overhaul the organization and establish a new path, but right now, the leadership is in limbo and no one really knows where they’re going to head.

Major League Talent: C-

There’s some good young players in the fold – Ryan Zimmerman, Elijah Dukes, Lastings Milledge, John Lannan, and Joel Hanrahan all showed that they have some major league abilities last year. Adam Dunn and Cristian Guzman are solid veteran role players. But the guys who have star power come with significant risks, and the guys the team can count on have limited upsides. It’s just not a roster that fits well together, either. In a best case scenario, the Nationals could finish .500 this year, and even that’s a longshot.

Minor League Talent: C

There’s some good young arms in Jordan Zimmerman, Collin Balester, and Ross Detwiler on the farm. And, if you give them credit for potentially drafting Stephen Strasburg with the #1 pick this summer, then there’s quite a bit of hope for their future rotation. But the depth of position player prospects is remarkably thin, and the Esmailyn Gonzalez revelation didn’t help at all. For a team that’s been pretty bad for a while, you’d expect a better farm system. This one’s not very good.

Overall: F

Yes, this is kind of kicking a group of men when he’s down, but it’s impossible to find an organization in worse shape than the Nats. They’re coming off a major league worst 102 loss season and their GM just resigned amidst a scandal over significant issues with their Dominican scouting operations. Rather than hiring a new general manager, the team president is just handling business himself while giving Asst. GM Mike Rizzo some increased authority without a promotion.

There are things Nationals fans can cling to in hoping for the future, but 2009 isn’t going to be much fun, and 2010 probably won’t be either.

Apparently, the Yankees didn’t like the idea of Mark Grudzielanek at third any more than the rest of you – Brian Cashman now says they’ll have Alex Rodriguez try rest and rehab in lieu of surgery. In other words, he’s going to attempt to play through a torn labrum in his hip.

This is the same injury that Mike Lowell played through last season. That’s a mix of good news and bad news for Yankee fans. The injury clearly effected Lowell, as he was limited to just 113 games played and was removed from the playoff roster in October. Lowell had been a durable guy up to that point, but the injury was just too much to play through on an everyday basis. So, even if Rodriguez can avoid surgery, it’s quite likely that he’ll spend quite a bit of time on the bench this summer.

However, Lowell also offers some reason for hope – he actually played pretty well when he was on the field. He posted a .344 wOBA and a +13.6 UZR/150, making himself a +3.1 win player while missing 1/3 of the season. While I’m sure it was painful to play through, he still was able to perform at something approximating his normal abilities. It didn’t take away his skills, just his frequency of deploying them.

Of course, Lowell is a sample of one, but Chase Utley played through a less serious but similar condition and performed so well that no one knew he was hurt until he had surgery in the off-season. Considering how well those two were able to perform with versions of this problem, it’s easy to see why the Yankees have decided to skip the surgery for now.

However, as we talked about this afternoon, they have no real third base depth to speak of, and they simply can’t count on Rodriguez being able to play everyday. They’re going to have to bring in a better option to spell Rodriguez on a semi-regular basis.