Archive for 2012 Organizational Rankings

Dave Cameron laid out the methodology behind the rankings last Friday. 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 White Sox
#23 – Seattle
#22 – Kansas City

Cleveland’s 2011 Ranking: #26

2012 Outlook: 47 (18th)
Once upon a time, in the mid-2000s, the Indians were brimming with young talent and very valuable major league pieces in C.C. Sabathia, Cliff Lee, Victor Martinez, Grady Sizemore and Travis Hafner. They peaked in 2007, with a 96-66 record, and an AL Central crown. Since then, a combination of untimely injuries, poor drafting, and a lack of acquired talent — especially through trading Sabathia and Lee — has kept the Indians below the .500 mark.

While the Indians may win more than 81 games in 2012, the oddly constructed roster is unlikely to contend for a playoff berth. Scoring a 47 on the 20-80 scale is appropriate, as they are a middle of the pack team that would need a lot to break right to challenge for one of the Wild Card spots. Crazier things have happened, but when Shelley Duncan projects to log 400+ PAs for your team, the odds aren’t ever in your favor.

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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 White Sox
#23 – Seattle

Kansas City’s 2011 Ranking: 25th

2012 Outlook: 45 (20th)

For the first time in a while, the Royals’ hitting pre-season hitting projects to be pretty good. The offense was quietly above average in 2011 (102 wRC+), and while regression is to be expected from player like Alex Gordon and Jeff Francoeur, one can also expect improvement from exciting young players like Eric Hosmer and Mike Moustakas.

The loss of Salvador Perez for a large chunk of the season will probably hurt defensively as well as offensively, but if Hosmer can start living up to his reputation in the field to go along with the strong defensive work expected from Alcides Escobar and Lorenzo Cain, the fielding should also good on balance.

So is Kansas City ready to take a shot at Detroit in 2012?

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Dave Cameron laid out the methodology behind the rankings last Friday. 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 White Sox

Seattle’s 2011 Ranking: #17

2012 Outlook: 36 (26th)

You don’t have to crunch too many numbers to figure out that this year’s Mariners are an extreme longshot to make the playoffs. They haven’t scored 600 runs in a season since 2009, and the team is breaking in a host of young, inexperienced players, many of whom have significant question marks surrounding their 2012 production levels. The team is basically betting on regression to the mean for previously useful position players (Chone Figgins, Ichiro Suzuki, and Franklin Gutierrez) to bolster the offense, but they’re still likely to be among the lowest scoring teams in the league.

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Dave Cameron laid out the methodology behind the rankings last Friday. 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

Chicago’s 2011 Ranking: #14

2012 Outlook: 43 (21st)

Boy, things looked a lot better last season. Armed with the highest payroll in team history and fresh off of signing Adam Dunn, the White Sox were the pre-season favorite to win the AL Central. Dunn responded to his new team with a historically bad .159/.292/.277 slash line. Dunn’s failure at the plate was far from the only issue. All of the White Sox high profile acquisitions cratered last season. Alex Rios looked completely lost at the plate — hitting .227/.265/.348 — and Jake Peavy pitched 111.2 innings with a 4.92 ERA. On top of those issues, Gordon Beckham once again failed to live up to his promising rookie season, and Juan Pierre received 711 underwhelming plate appearances. Thankfully, Paul Konerko continued to defy Father Time — posting the fourth best season of his career at 35-years-old.

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Dave Cameron laid out the methodology behind the rankings last Friday. 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 Read the rest of this entry »

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

San Diego’s 2011 Ranking: #20
Read the rest of this entry »

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

Pittsburgh’s 2011 Ranking: 28th

2012 Outlook — 37 (25th)

How can a 72-win season possibly represent progress? It helps for the franchise in question to be coming off a coming off a 57-win debacle the season before. And it helps for the franchise in question to be coming off four straight last-place finishes. And it helps for the franchise in question to entering its 19th consecutive season without a playoff appearance.

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

2012 Organizational Rankings

#30 – Baltimore
#29 – Houston

Oakland’s 2011 Ranking: #18

2012 Outlook: 38 (25th)

Oakland’s neither here nor there right now, but there might not be a better team to help us through the new methodology. After all, they dropped ten rungs, and in some ways it’s business as usual in the bay.

We know going into these rankings, for example, that the current team isn’t (and hasn’t been) very good. Last year, they allowed 24 more runs than they scored, and then they spent the offseason trading away three of their top five starters, their All-Star closer, and their fourth outfielder and best left-handed reliever. Some projections have them only allowing 50 more runs than they score this season — seems almost generous after all that — but no matter what, those moves don’t really put them in a position to win more games than they won last year, right?

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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

Houston’s 2011 Ranking: #30

2012 Outlook: 26 (30th)

Five position players recorded a WAR above 2.0 (i.e. league average) last season for the Astros, and three of those five (Clint Barmes, Michael Bourn, and Hunter Pence) don’t play for the club anymore. Another (El Caballo himself, Mr. Carlos Lee) benefited greatly from a defensive rating (11.2 UZR) which is almost certainly not representative of his true talent. And the fifth, Brian Bogusevic, benefited not only from defensive runs (12.1 UZR in just 324.0 innings in the corner outfield) but also a .355 BABIP. All of which is a roundabout way of saying that the Astros’ present is dim. On the brightish side, J.D. Martinez appears poised to provide value on both sides of the ball, and offseason acquisition Chris Snyder (in tandem with now-less-injured Jason Castro) has a good chance of improving upon the -0.3 WAR for which Houston catchers combined in 2011. But in reality, the 2012 Astros are, on paper, perhaps the worst team in recent baseball history. They might not match the 119 loss season that the 2003 Detroit Tigers put up, but they’re a mortal lock for 90 losses and a pretty good bet for 100. This is just a roster that is not set up to compete against Major League teams.

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

Baltimore’s 2011 Ranking: #16

2012 Outlook: – 31 (29th)

The Orioles would be a long shot to be a contender in any division in baseball, as their young pitching hasn’t emerged as they had hoped and they’ve struggled to find good complementary offensive pieces to surround their best young players. As such, this a team that is going to give up a lot of runs and not score enough to compensate. When you add in the level of competition they face in the American League East, it would take something close to the largest miracle in sports history for the Orioles to win their division this season. The addition of a second wild card spot does make it more possible for the Orioles to hope they can play in October again at some point, but that point is not this year. The talent level just isn’t in place to compete with good Major League teams, and in a division with three of the seven best teams in baseball ahead of them, they should consider a 75 win season a success.

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