Front Office Ratings, By the Community
There is no good known method for rating all the front offices. Every team has a front office, consisting of a general manager and a bunch of other guys, and fans talk about those front offices, but critical evaluation is hard. One could, I suppose, just think about wins and losses, but that seems an over-simplification. So this is the second part of a project, a project that depended upon your participation. Just the other day, I posted polls for every team in baseball, and I asked for front-office ratings. It’s crowdsourced evaluation, and while there’s a difference between crowd evaluation and the actual truth, I’m no less interested in perception of the front offices. Presented below is how people think. Who isn’t interested in how people think?
How good is a front office? It’s a very simple question, that’s also an extremely complicated question. I tried to untangle the front office from ownership. I tried to untangle the front office from the player-development people. The question is, basically: if a front office were given average resources, how many championships would it win over a million season repetitions? More than average, fewer than average, or exactly average? That’s not a possible thing to know, but that doesn’t mean the community didn’t have opinions. Some of them were very strong.
An example of one of the polls:
For the sake of analysis, I gave each rating a number score, from 1 to 5, with 5 corresponding to “very good.” That made it possible to do some simple math, and in this plot, average ratings for all 30 front offices:
Pretty obviously, the numbers are rounded — the Cardinals and Cubs are tied at 4.6, but they aren’t actually tied, because the true averages are longer than two digits. The Cardinals’ front office finished first, with the most favorable rating in baseball. The Phillies, meanwhile, somewhat predictably came in last, and by a considerable margin to boot. Most of the talk at the moment is that Ruben Amaro is inevitably going to get fired, and while there’s a multitude of reasons for that, the community doesn’t seem to think the dismissal will leave the Phillies worse off.
I don’t really know how much to say. There’s a lot in here that’s interesting, but much of it you can see on your own. I should also point out that different people were voting in each different poll, so it’s not like the numbers were generated by the exact same pool of people. Maybe Cardinals fans are just particularly happy. Maybe Rockies fans aren’t. Maybe for reasons beyond just on-field performance. It’s a factor that shouldn’t be outright ignored.
Some of the ratings — many of the ratings — are anything but surprising. Of course people have a high opinion of the Cardinals’ front office; it seems like, almost, a model organization. Of course people like the Cubs. People have quickly come around on the Astros, and they’re right there with the Pirates, and of course there’s plenty of support for Billy Beane. The Giants and Nationals have sneaked in toward the front — the Giants just don’t stop winning championships, and the Nationals aren’t perceived to be just a Scott Boras plaything.
At the lower end, Amaro gets made fun of all the time, and the Phillies are a wreck. Say what you will about some of Amaro’s more recent moves, but he’s also a big reason why the Phillies are in this situation in the first place. The Diamondbacks’ front office is new, but there are warning signs bigger than the freeway they’re viewed from. The Rockies and Marlins are being punished in part, I think, because of ownership, although those ownership situations are almost impossible to isolate. Naturally, the Mariners look bad, several years after Jack Zduriencik looked like a savior. I don’t have to address every single team.
Both the mean and the median are north of 3. Overall, voters think their given front offices are a little better than average. This is consistent with the observed pattern that fans are over-optimistic. Of considerable interest to me: the relatively high rating for Dayton Moore and the Royals’ front office. It wasn’t long ago that the Royals were thought of as something of a laughingstock, but they just made the World Series, and now they’re playing really well again, and people are coming around. Which led me to the following relationship. You know what makes people like their front office? Winning.
That’s a very simple graph, but it shows a pretty damn strong relationship between front-office rating and team winning percentage at the time the polls were posted. Of course, we should expect some relationship — after all, a good front office is more likely to construct a good baseball team. But this is…what’s the word? Suspicious? Evidence of results-based analysis? Not every point is right on the line. The A’s have a low winning percentage, but a high rating. But then, the A’s have a long history of doing pretty well, and this year’s performance hasn’t matched the wins and losses. The Diamondbacks are in the opposite situation, but there’s no track record there, and the community doesn’t love Dave Stewart’s unorthodox methods.
What’s suggested is that team success or failure will have a very strong influence over fan perception of front-office ability. The front office is in part responsible for those wins and losses, but sometimes there’s just good or bad luck. Sometimes there are outside factors. But, rising tides and all that. Fans want wins. When there are wins, fans are pleased. When there aren’t, they aren’t. It would’ve been quite interesting to see where the Astros would’ve come out a year ago, before they up and started shocking the American League. The front-office personnel was the same. Was the perception?
Here’s a table, and if I’m doing things right, it should be sortable. I’ve had problems with that feature in the past. It’s really quite annoying. Anyhow, the table is self-explanatory.
| Team | Very Bad | Pretty Bad | Average | Pretty Good | Very Good | Votes | Rating |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Angels | 8% | 30% | 42% | 18% | 3% | 1250 | 2.77 |
| Astros | 1% | 2% | 5% | 42% | 50% | 1348 | 4.37 |
| Athletics | 2% | 3% | 7% | 38% | 50% | 1351 | 4.34 |
| Blue Jays | 1% | 8% | 40% | 43% | 7% | 1392 | 3.46 |
| Braves | 2% | 9% | 31% | 40% | 17% | 1319 | 3.62 |
| Brewers | 16% | 52% | 29% | 3% | 1% | 1173 | 2.21 |
| Cardinals | 4% | 1% | 2% | 14% | 79% | 1452 | 4.63 |
| Cubs | 1% | 1% | 5% | 26% | 66% | 1544 | 4.55 |
| Diamondbacks | 54% | 29% | 13% | 3% | 1% | 1295 | 1.67 |
| Dodgers | 1% | 3% | 15% | 34% | 47% | 1377 | 4.23 |
| Giants | 1% | 2% | 12% | 45% | 41% | 1300 | 4.22 |
| Indians | 1% | 8% | 47% | 36% | 7% | 1118 | 3.41 |
| Mariners | 24% | 52% | 22% | 2% | 0% | 1406 | 2.04 |
| Marlins | 40% | 35% | 18% | 6% | 1% | 1140 | 1.93 |
| Mets | 12% | 28% | 39% | 19% | 3% | 1318 | 2.74 |
| Nationals | 1% | 2% | 24% | 51% | 22% | 1242 | 3.92 |
| Orioles | 1% | 7% | 39% | 44% | 10% | 1148 | 3.54 |
| Padres | 18% | 43% | 32% | 7% | 1% | 1165 | 2.29 |
| Phillies | 88% | 9% | 1% | 0% | 1% | 1466 | 1.17 |
| Pirates | 1% | 1% | 9% | 41% | 48% | 1263 | 4.35 |
| Rangers | 2% | 15% | 52% | 27% | 3% | 1086 | 3.15 |
| Rays | 1% | 1% | 13% | 47% | 38% | 1154 | 4.21 |
| Red Sox | 6% | 21% | 38% | 29% | 5% | 1342 | 3.05 |
| Reds | 9% | 50% | 36% | 3% | 0% | 1107 | 2.35 |
| Rockies | 39% | 46% | 14% | 1% | 0% | 1084 | 1.77 |
| Royals | 2% | 9% | 38% | 40% | 12% | 1128 | 3.52 |
| Tigers | 3% | 17% | 42% | 32% | 6% | 1125 | 3.21 |
| Twins | 6% | 31% | 47% | 15% | 2% | 1064 | 2.76 |
| White Sox | 13% | 42% | 36% | 9% | 1% | 1143 | 2.43 |
| Yankees | 5% | 11% | 40% | 36% | 7% | 1244 | 3.30 |
88% of voters declared the Phillies’ front office to be “very bad.” Next up, the Diamondbacks, at a distant 54%. At the other end, 79% of voters see the Cardinals’ front office as “very good,” and then the Cubs are at 66%. You might notice that, in the Cardinals’ case, there’s a 4% figure for “very bad.” And the Phillies are at 1% “very good.” There’s nothing to be done about poll-trolls. There’s a lot we don’t know, but I think we do know the Cardinals’ front office isn’t very bad, and the Phillies’ front office isn’t very good. So some data points, you just have to ignore.
The Cubs, as it happens, drew the most votes. Meanwhile, the Twins drew the fewest. Neither is much of a shock. The Cubs have a massive internet presence, and their front-office members are known to baseball fans everywhere. The Twins are a loaf of bread. Sometimes you want the bread. Sometimes the bread is stale or moldy. No matter what, you’re not excited by the bread. If I’m surprised here by anything, it’s that the Cubs’ vote total didn’t exceed the Twins’ total by more.
As a last table, let’s look at voting-result standard deviations. For which front offices was there the most agreement? For which was there not?
| Team | SD |
|---|---|
| Mets | 0.99 |
| Red Sox | 0.98 |
| Marlins | 0.95 |
| Yankees | 0.94 |
| Braves | 0.93 |
| Angels | 0.92 |
| Tigers | 0.92 |
| Cardinals | 0.90 |
| Dodgers | 0.88 |
| Royals | 0.87 |
| Padres | 0.86 |
| Diamondbacks | 0.86 |
| White Sox | 0.85 |
| Athletics | 0.84 |
| Twins | 0.83 |
| Orioles | 0.81 |
| Giants | 0.80 |
| Blue Jays | 0.80 |
| Rangers | 0.79 |
| Indians | 0.78 |
| Nationals | 0.77 |
| Rays | 0.77 |
| Astros | 0.76 |
| Mariners | 0.76 |
| Brewers | 0.76 |
| Cubs | 0.76 |
| Pirates | 0.74 |
| Rockies | 0.73 |
| Reds | 0.72 |
| Phillies | 0.56 |
People were pretty damn sure on the Phillies. There were 1,425 votes for “very bad” or “pretty bad.” There were 41 votes for the other three ratings, and some of those were trolling attempts. Among mediocre teams, there’s not a lot of observed uncertainty for the Reds or Rockies. Among strong teams, there’s agreement for the Cubs and Astros and Pirates.
The Mets are more all over the place. They didn’t get much support for being “very good,” but all the other ratings drew at least 12% of the votes. I think this is understandable; there’s frustration that the team can’t hit and doesn’t spend enough money, but there’s also acknowledgment of the role of injuries, and of the constraints due to ownership. Right behind the Mets are the Red Sox, who’ve had a bipolar on-field product. The front office was the toast of the town prior to last year’s fifth-place finish. This year’s team has also disappointed, though it’s shown recent signs of life. It’s not easy to know what to believe, and the Red Sox also get to operate with resources unmatched by most of the rest of baseball.
Anything else there is to discuss, you can discuss in the comments below. And, thank you all for your participation. I literally couldn’t have done this without you. I mean, I guess I could’ve falsified data, but you’d probably pick up on that. Unless you wouldn’t. Maybe I falsified the data above! Who would know! But, I didn’t. All right, that’s enough of this paragraph. Thanks again.
Jeff made Lookout Landing a thing, but he does not still write there about the Mariners. He does write here, sometimes about the Mariners, but usually not.
I should have hired Free AEC to hack the Astro’s computers.
Sigh.
I know this opinion won’t be popular on this site, but I think Beane has lost a little bit from his glory days.
No one wins every deal – that is well understood – but I think Beane got his clocked cleaned on the Addison Russell deal and the Josh Donaldson deal.
And the Billy Butler signing remains a mystery that will never be solved.
The 15 of you who voted the Philies FO as very good should be chemically castrated.
“The 15 of you who voted the Philies FO as very good should be castrated.”
There. I fixed it for you.
That depends on how many of those 15 voters were agents representing Jonathan Papelbon and Ryan Howard.
Ruben Amaro must’ve voted 15 times. That has to be it.
“Overall, voters think their given front offices are a little better than average. This is consistent with the observed pattern that fans are over-optimistic.”
This is a more basic psychological principle, too – people are just bad at estimating what the average is, especially in relation to themselves. 90% of teachers rate themselves above average, for example.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Illusory_superiority
Drivers, too.
Parents in Lake Woebegon too
I’m betting the negative votes for the Cardinals FO are all due to the recent hacking revelations. Or possibly just people hating the Cardinals.
No offense to Bostonians here but if such a poll was done for the NE Pats I wonder what the results would be. Very good cause of the wins or very bad cause of the “cheating” they’d reputed to be doing.
Are u happy/ok if u knew with non refutable evidence you’re team was cheating but kept winning? Or would u want that FO kicked out? Since they’ve been or will be penalized, is it all ok?
Just curious how rational NE and St Louis fans feel about such things.
“I’ve cheated, or someone on my team has cheated, in almost every single game I’ve been in.”
–Hornsby, R.
I’d want the FO kicked out.
This happened to my team several years ago, but, in that case, it was a win-win situation. A terrible GM (Jim Bowden) resigned and a very good GM was hired (Mike Rizzo).
Yes, the high draft picks helped, but so did the change in FO.
Of course, when the cheating involves exploiting teenagers (or people pretending to be teenagers) from a very poor country, well, then one leans even more on the side of them getting kicked out.
Of course there’s a ton we don’t know yet, but I don’t think the Cards’ FO was ‘cheating’ – at least not in the sense that they’d derive any on-field competitive advantage. The situation seemed to revolve around perceived corporate espionage by the Astros, which certain members of the org then investigated in a clumsy, idiotic manner.
That said, if the Cards DID cheat, then by all means, heads should roll. (Although admittedly the definition of ‘the Cards’ is very slippery there. If one guy in the organization cheats, is the organization cheating? What if it’s more than one guy? What if it goes no higher than middle management? Very tricky questions…)
Those are not tricky questions. If one guy cheated then ‘the Cards’ cheated.
Unless you’re a fan of oversimplification.
It seems Buns is not much of a fan of nuance.
I want everyone who was involved in or had knowledge of the hacking to GTFO.
That said, I make a distinction between “the FO” and the few idiots involved in that particular offense. Overall, the performance of the FO in St. Louis is excellent.
I don’t understand all the love for the Astros. They seem quite average to me.
Half the time, the batting order doesn’t make much sense (Altuve third? Really?) and while that’s technically the managers’ job that seems to be an organization where the front office has nots of day to day input.
Most teams make boneheaded mistakes occasionally, and the Astros are not immune (DFA JD Martinez…).
They tried some funky stuff with their pitchers in the minors and the methods didn’t translate.
Their choices for manager/coaches aren’t revolutionary.
Yes they are winning.
Surely this is largely due to “well, if you get enough high round picks, sooner or later you’ll be OK”.
Even a blind squirrels finds the occasional nut.
I don’t think the Astros’ front office is horrible, but if I say it’s average, 92% of respondents like them more than I do.
To see the Astros more than half a point ahead of the Royals, Braves, and Yankees boggles my mind.
Well, their plan was to rebuild in the shortest time possible, they blew it up and they’re winning this year. So I’d say mission accomplished. Sure you can talk about if their method was ethical and we might even call this season “lucky”. But if they set up a plan, went through it and succeeded in their plan, I’d say that’s a pretty good FO imo.
totally agree. they did what every bad team should do. hire a smart analytics guy. tear it down completely and start over from the ground up. i think even if they were in last place this year i would still feel the same way. its pretty evident the pieces are in place for future sustained success in houston.
contrast that with the phillies refusal to admit it was over until it was way too late. or to a lesser extent the white sox this year. those teams seem to be stuck in hopeless mode for the long term future with 1 or 2 stars, virtually no other quality major league talent and no clear path to any kind of future success.
Let’s not rewrite history. The current Astros GM didn’t: “tear it down completely and start over from the ground up”. That decision had already been made when he was hired–the Astros won 206 games over their previous 3 years and had nothing of significant value (other than the recently promoted Jose Altuve) on the major league roster when Luhnow arrived. Fwiw, there was some very good minor league talent–the aforementioned Altuve and George Springer–already in the system. Singleton too, if you’re a believer.
This isn’t to dump on Luhnow–it’s just to say simplistically “they blew it up and they’re winning this year” as a way of crediting Luhnow and defending his ranking makes about as much sense as the underpants gnomes business model–it’s missing some pretty key info. Further, a top 10% case scenario for the next 5 years is what Mike Rizzo has accomplished in roughly similar circumstances and with similar draft picks. Rizzo ranks 5 spots below Luhnow in the rankings though. That feels off to me.
Wrt the other stuff…
Yes, the Phillies most certainly tried to stay competitive too long. However, we most certainly benefit by hindsight in saying so. Additionally, their performance is also linked to a terrible GM, who may be coloring our perception of the team in 2012/2013 unduly.
The truth would seem to be, it’s often pretty tough to know when and what to sell. Should the 2015 White Sox trade Chris Sale? Or should they hang onto him like the 2010/11 Mariners held on to Felix? Further, is hanging onto Felix–who still hasn’t pitched in the playoffs–in 2011 evidence of a good decision making or bad?
Should the Tigers tear it down? How about the Reds? Or even the Blue Jays…
“Further, a top 10% case scenario for the next 5 years is what Mike Rizzo has accomplished in roughly similar circumstances and with similar draft picks. Rizzo ranks 5 spots below Luhnow in the rankings though. That feels off to me.”
Of course the unknown possibility of potential is a much bigger draw than the much less exciting reality. It’s the same reason we love prospects — we dream not on that top 10%, but on that top 1%. Bryce Harper was a letdown when he was putting up 4 WAR as a 21-yo. Now that he’s gone HAM he’s finally “succeeding” but a normal career progression starting from 4 WAR at 21 would still be a damn useful career. Luhnow and CHN are beloved because maybe they’ve made the best team we can imagine for 2016 and beyond. When 2017 rolls around and they’re “just” perennial division-winners we’ll have a new system to dream on.
While it’s true that Luhnow can’t be given full credit for the Astros’ successful rebuild, he’s also the same guy who as scouting director completely transformed the Cardinals’ farm system from a weakness to a major strength that has been paying off handsomely over the past few years.
I agree that its odd to see the Astros ranked as the 3rd best front office in baseball given some of the things they have done. But I would also wager that alot of people weigh the value of a front office simply on the amount of prospects/young talent they currently have.
There is no doubt in my mind that the Astros’ front office is superior to the Royals, Braves and Yankees. Their bold plan to sell off everything that wasn’t nailed down and be the worst possible team was exactly what the franchise needed. It is quite remarkable that they went from a bottom 5 team in both MLB quality and MILB system to one of the best teams in both MLB and MILB in such a short period. Look back at the trades Luhnow made since he took over. While a number didn’t pan out, he overall did extremely well, particularly given that the Astros didn’t really have much of value outside of Hunter Pence (and they hilariously ripped off the Phillies with the whole PTBNL mistake).
Luhnow’s drafting also looks very strong in retrospect, particularly the 2012 draft (which was his first). Correa over Buxton was the unpopular choice at the time, but Correa looks like a franchise player and perennial all-star, while Buxton remains a ? (although he’ll probably be solid too). Meanwhile, McCullers looks like a future top of the rotation guy. The fact that they seemingly got two valuable MLB players in the draft is very strong, and they also picked up other MLB quality guys deeper in the draft (e.g. Preston Tucker).
It could all be luck, but that seems suspect. Also, Luhnow was the Cardinal’s Scouting and Player Development guy. Go look back at his drafts from the mid-late 2000’s. He ran circles around everyone else in draft quality. The Cardinals are known for all their success with homegrown talent – a large component of that was Luhnow.
I’d honestly rate the Astros FO as probably the #1 in baseball.
Did you just judge Buxton off of one week of MLB performance?
Just saying the dude is still amazing, although nerves were clearly bugging him (which will go away).
I really don’t think Correa is any less of a ? then Buxton.
Lots of players come up and dominate and then get slapped back down hard.
I probably wasn’t clear in the Correa v. Buxton comment. It’s still early, but Correa looks amazing, particularly given his age. One of the big questions prior to this season was whether he would ever develop into a home run threat – a lot of scouts saw him as a doubles gap hitter. Correa has more or less demonstrated that his game power is probably for real.
I didn’t mean to denigrate Buxton (I guess “solid” sounds less enthusiastic than intended). Buxton will probably be great too – we just haven’t seen flashes of that greatness yet.
However, if you were to redo the draft today, I suspect a lot more people in the industry would pick Correa.
Luhnow didn’t trade Pence, Ed Wade did. And let’s S his D too much for it–that trade has been worth -1.7 WAR for the Astros so far.
Surely the Brady Aiken debacle (considered by BA to be a fireable offense at the time) should throw some cold water on the “Luhnow’s drafting also looks very strong in retrospect” sentiment, no?
No, a kid’s adisor’s whining to the press should not be a concern.
This is the big issue with homers in general. Correa looks like a perennial all-star, while Buxton is a question mark who may still turn out to be solid? What? This isn’t even close to reality
This was a cool project. Hopefully, if we do this again in 5 years and McPhail does well the Phillies will be closer to the top.
This would be an interesting project to do annually to track how the perceptions change and relate to winning vs notable events.
Angel GM and his FO were not mediocre or below average. They were terribly good: It’s not easy to stay competitive every year due to expectation and owner pride, dig deep into the lesser talent pool due to low draft priority, and still be able to develop Major League regulars and stars.
On the contrary, the Braves had some terrible trades and too many inconsistent home players that have holes since Minor. They were not TRYING to STAY competitive every year like the Angels. It’s just a mediocre FO, 2 cents.
There are plenty of organizations on there that don’t blame “lesser talent pool due to low draft priority” at all.
The Angels drafted and developed Mike Trout. That’s good! Other than that, their farm system has been mostly bad, and they’ve managed to make a few unfortunate to awful trades and signings.
They’re not the worst front office (hello, Amaro!), but they definitely were bad. Though, as you said, it is probably not all the FO’s fault. In a place where Moreno overrules and interferes often, and the organization is run by the philosophy of Scioscialism, that’s a tough environment.
What terrible trades did the Braves have?? Yunel’s really the only one I can think of that involved a significant piece. Other than that, you have to go back nearly a decade to find a significant trade that fared poorly (Teixeira). The Heyward trade has worked pretty well, the Upton (both to and from the org) and Kimbrel trades have been excellent.
I mean, if you want to nitpick something like the Farnsworth/Ankiel trade that moved Gregor Blanco, that’s a possibility, but the Braves have typically found themselves on the right side of the trade table.
How did that Hanson-Walden trade work out for the Angels?? Hope you really like Kyle Kubitza…Suarez isn’t killing it in A ball, but he’s also four years younger than the average player for his league. Not too many 18-year-olds playing full season ball.
It was the drafting under Wren that really suffered. They were also facing low drafting priorities, but that’s not an excuse.
-C
Under a new GM this year, the Braves farm system went from bottom 5 to top 12 arguably higher depending on who you ask. They did this without having to lose 90+ games for multiple seasons. At this time last year, you could say the Braves FO was mediocre, but I think Hart as made some very good moves to greatly improve the farm system.
Also, the Angels FO has had a significantly higher payroll and greater payroll flexibility than the Braves FO. Its a lot easier to put a quality team on the field when you can spend as much as you want to acquire and keep players, the Braves are basically a mid market team with a shrinking payroll at this point
What do you think about Heaney and Kalhoun? The Braves as a whole between 2006 and 2015 had not been consistently good. They boasted a “good farm” system as opposed to the Angels reputation of “bad farm.” But I have the feeling that if you add up all the WAR of players developed by either systems, including those who were Major-ready and traded into them then called up in a year, you might find surprise and think twice.
It sucks to be tagged and labeled “bad farm,” but I would hire the entire Angels staff under Dipoto since 2011, instead of the mediocre Schuerholz-Wren-Hart oligarchy.
How’s about FO rating to Wins/$$ payroll?
Let’s not encourage using WAR/$ as anything more than a toy.
Not WAR, actual wins. Counting the playoffs, Royals and Giants both won about 100 games, divide that into payroll and get a cost per win. A couple of GMs rank consistently high that way, a few others have been disasters for years.
The Twins would probably rank last or near dead last (Thank God for the Phillies!) the last 4 years.
IDK, payroll wasn’t exactly high…
Man, gotta wonder what Dayton Moore has to do to get more respect around these parts.
Agreed.
I can see the Royals being compared to the Astros (stink for years, get enough #1 picks so you might not stink, then don’t stink) but the Astros are well behind the Royals on the timeline. Royals have already made the playoffs, showed they belonged, and now show they’re not a one-season flash-in-the-pan.
Astros 4.37, Royals 3.52? Really?
Might have something to do with the fact that Dayton Moore was hired in 2006, while Jeff Luhnow joined the Astros in 2011.
The Astros could fall apart, but Luhnow appears to have turned it around much faster than did Moore.
The Pirates have had the same GM since 2007. Didnt seem to hurt him at all.
I dont have a huge problem with the Astros being up there. Right now it looks like Luhnow and Co. have pulled of a miracle. Credit where credit is due.
My point wasnt really about “The Royals should be ahead of X” it more just about the fact that damn near half the respondents (49% to be exact) voted the Royals front office as average to below average.
That seems pretty harsh for a team that made the playoffs last year and is currently battling for the best record in the AL despite having a payroll in the bottom half and who only made minor moves in the offseason after losing what were supposedly key pieces (Butler, Shields).
If thats an average front office, they a very good one must be making gold from lead.
Yeah, GEORGE BRETT. The most likely scenario is everyone else is biased against the Royals. It couldn’t possibly be the other way around.
First off, not really a Royals fan. Was actually an Expos fan. Name is a joke between me and a couple friends.
Second of all, the Royals DID make the playoffs last year and DO have the best record in the AL currently. So I’m not just making shit up here to be a homer.
If you dont think its a bit odd that the team with the second best record in baseball was just voted as having a mediocre at best Front office then so be it. I think it is though. And it has nothing to do with bias.
It’s certainly not a secret around these parts that Moore’s crew is still considered somewhat lucky — their success last year was seen as fluky (with a playoff run set off by an extra-innings win — the least convincing of wins — over the presumptive AL favorites) and projections still don’t love them going forward. They’ve nonetheless had success, at least over this past 1.5 years, but they’re not doing what the sabr community (and therefore this community) rep for. Which is reminiscent of another team, BAL, who happen to be just about tied with KC in FO opinion.
The projections may not love them going forward, but you know what? The projections have been wrong about them for three years straight now.
Perhaps it’s time to consider that maybe – just maybe – there is something wrong with the projections. The Royals, on the other hand, seem to be fine. Projection systems apparently have no clue what to do with a team that’s constructed the way they are.
sure. but it shouldn’t be a surprise that *this community* (e.g. the one that generally agrees with the line of thought that these projections stand for) would prefer a team that looks sustainable in the long run than one that, to our eyes now, is somewhat “fluky.” in fact, it makes quite a bit of sense that KC and BAL are neck and neck, as they are either sustainably good or recurringly lucky, depending on your POV.
Royals aren’t built for FIP, OBP, or TTO, so sabr won’t like them until defensive stats get better and BABIP is seen as more than luck.
Honest question to Rays followers: to what extent is the Rays’ score here a reflection of the old Friedman era? How do you feel about the guys who’ve replaced Friedman, and what are some distinctive elements of their management?
I’m asking because I would not have placed such a new, unproven Rays administration in the top ten. But probably Rays fans know a lot of stuff I don’t.
Sort of the same thing with the Dodgers. Interesting to see that 47% of respondents ranked the Dodgers front office as “very good” despite the fact that they have been there for less than a year.
Granted Friedman has previous track record but still, its new ground. The Dodgers current success has little to do with him and his team and so far the big moves they made have been about 50/50 in terms of success. Grandal looks good as does Anderson but Rollins looks godawful and McCarthy is, surprise surprise, hurt and was pretty bad when he wasnt. And so far the Kendrick over Dee Gordon upgrade hasnt panned out (not that Kendrick has been bad).
Guess rep counts for alot in LA 😉
Dat bullpen doe!
Well reputation – plus the front office drives a nice car, has a gorgeous girlfriend and surfs.
Brett Anderson on a 1 year $10 million deal was a huge steal. Have you forgotten who LA gave up for Grandal? Matt Kemp for Grandal was the most onsided trade of the offseason. A catcher + pitching prospect depth for Matt Kemp. Matt Kemp needs to move to 1B. Grandal is the best MLB pitch framer and his OPS+ is 71 points higher than Kemps. A switch hitting, catcher, age 26 with an OPS+ of 154 for the expensive block that was keeping Joc Pederson in the minors too long. There’s almost no price LA wouldn’t pay to do it over. Austin Barnes, Kike Hernandez, Hector Olivera, Walker Buehler, Yadier Alvarez, Kyle Funkhouser. You can bank on someone from their massive depth bubbling up.
They are also paying Matt Kemp 18 million dollars this year to play for another team.
Granted that money means nothing to the Dodgers but its a hard to call a trade a steal when you are pretty much paying a guys entire salary for the team you traded him too. It wasnt so much a “trade” as it was just saying “here, take this guy. We will pay him for you”.
I really, really like what the Rays have done to rebuild the team on the fly so quickly. The trades post-Friedman have pointed the franchise in a positive direction. The team has been a lot of fun to watch this season, this recent downswing notwithstanding, and the hire of Kevin Cash looks great. He’s brought a lot of good energy to the team and he really seems to have a good grip on what he’s doing 80 or so games into his managerial career. And while Friedman is gone, much of the old front office staff remains. Silverman’s been with the franchise since 2008 and he’s got to be one of the smartest people in baseball.
My Rangers are thoroughly average at least, so that’s nice.
What this tells me is that the NLC is a very tough division. 3 of the top 4 rated front offices. And Luhnow was a part of that just a short time ago as well.
So were the Astros.
I wonder how high some of these FO’s would be rated if every ownership just green-lighted 5 years of incredible heavy losses and payrolls laughably out of line with market size
Depends. Do they win or do they just spend money?
I guess this is what 4 straight divisional titles by the Tigers gets you, WOW!!!
The unbelievable thing is Dave Dombrowksi has completely re-vamped nearly his entire position player group and done so on the fly the last 2 years while continuing to be extremely productive. If you went back exactly 2 years ago today the Tigers have just 3 hitters on their roster who were with them on this date of July 9th, 2013 (Cabrera, Avila and Victor Martinez).
Despite a new player at nearly every spot on their team they still lead MLB in batting average and in on base in 2015 and were ranked #1 in BA and #2 in OBP back in 2013. Their outfield is currently ranked #1 in WAR in MLB and have NONE of the same guys from 2 years ago. Sure Cabrera helps out but most teams have their top guy from two years ago and before you say Victor Martinez, keep in mind how little overall production he’s posted so far this season and his 2013 was really nothing special either.
2015 2013
C-Avila/McCann Avila
1B-Cabrera Cabrera (though it was Fielder who played here but easier to compare this way)
2B- Kinsler Infante
SS- Iglesias Peralta
3B- Castellanos Fielder (switched with Cabrera- explained above)
LF- Cespedes Dirks
CF- Gose/Davis Jackson
RF- J.D. Martinez Hunter
DH- V.Martinez V.Martinez
The Tigers 2nd-7th ranked position players in WAR from 2013 are no longer with their team. I’m not saying the Tigers have the best FO in baseball but to be ranked below 50% of the teams. All because of what? they haven’t won a WS? which is something more agree is more or less a crapshoot come playoff time.
Seems like a overreaction to having won a few less games so far this season than was expected. Overall the Tigers have still won the most games in the American League since the start of the 2013 season until now and the most in MLB besides the #1 ranked FO of the St. Louis Cardinals, over the the last 5 years.
I think it has far more to do with the fact that the Tigers system is barren of young talent and most people see them as basically on the precipice of Phillies style collapse.
I like Dombrowski and think he is very good (he built the glory years of my Expos) but the Tigers future does not look overly bright right now.
The Cabrera deal being too long might have something to do with it.
Not extending Price this past winter might have something to do with it.
Paying Verlander instead of Scherzer (who knew?) almost certainly has something to do with it.
I took the squad that I was given and I vamped again yeah I vamped again
I bet they are getting knocked pretty hard for the terrible bullpen year after year. It’s been bad for a long time.
Nice to see Rick Hahn getting judged for two months of Melky Cabrera’s batting average.
I’d say it’s more a dislike of Kenny Williams, who is still actually calling the shots.
What can you say. We’re amazing.
And go clean the toilet, Milwaukee.
Can we stop using the injury excuse for the Mets please. Which teams don’t have to deal with injuries? Cards (Waino, Adams, Walden, Holliday, Jay), Rays (Smyly, Moore, Cobb, Odorizzi, Jennings, Loney, McGee), Nats (Rendon, Werth, Zimmerman, Stammen, Span, Stras)…
Last season the excuse was Harvey. This year it’s Wright and D’Arnaud. Who will it be next season?
Wright and d’Arnaud and Murphy and Lagares and Herrera, plus Wheeler and Montero and Blevins and Edgin and Black and Parnell and Mejia (who was hurt before he got suspended). The fact that all teams have injuries does not mean that all teams have equal injuries. They don’t.
They’re not missing most of those cats… Wright, D’No and Blevins. But that’s not more damaging than the teams I mentioned above.
But Jesse Spector said AA is the worst in the league.
*wank off motion*
pretty much anyone who covers Baseball for a major media outlet in Canada is terrible.
Upon further investigation I appear to be confusing Jesse Spector with Mark Spector.
I stand by my comment though.
So a team that had the best record in baseball last year and is a consistent playoff contender gets 21% of the voters to think that they are better than average? This really looks like more of an exercise of rating organizations on how many top 50 prospects they have.
I get it that Hamilton has been a disaster. Pujols will be a disaster. But the Trout signing was brilliant. Landing Skaggs and Santiago had been huge. Heany is looking great in early outings. All in all I don’t see a front office that is average or poor. Especially when the two worst signings weren’t decided by the FO.
I think many people voted “Very Bad” because “Chaos” is not an option.
I’m an agent of chaos.
You may get that impression, but 4 of the top 8 do not exactly have many top prospects (Oak, TB, STL, SF). The Angels are getting middle scores based on a number of both good and bad moves combined with the barren farm.
In fairness to Oakland, they are rated highly probably because of Billy’s trading and waiver claims.
The A’s do not draft well at all and rarely have a good farm.
Hi!
Tommy Milone, you’ve forgotten that you prove Alex’s point. Remember when you were a Nats prospect?
Putting ownership in brackets does not make much sense. The rot in an organization starts at the top, and crummy upper management will produce crummy results. Following the Pirates during the McClatchyfield era illustrated that point for me. I doubt McClatchy would have led the organization to >.500 record except by accident. The Nutting ownership group, on the other hand, has put the franchise on stable financial ground and has authorized a quality FO to build an organization that competes for championships.
Isn’t Moreno the head of the FO. He functions as a President of baseball ops. How much credit do they get for extending a CF who put up 10 WAR at age 20 and 21 with 2 top 2 MVP finishes? If anything the should have done it sooner when trout was looking for every subway endorsement $ he could find.If you’re talking about signing him out of the draft that was 2 FO’s ago. Friedman would have locked him up in Tampa before he was ever promoted.
It seems more like an exercise in how effective Fangraphs narrative is.
Teams like Oakland, TBay, SF can do no wrong. But everything KC or Bal do is just dumb luck.
SF?! You must be new here…the butthurt is strong with those guys.
The D-backs’ front office is absolutely not the 2nd-worst in all of baseball, yet people around here obviously think that’s the case because Fangraphs is always shitting on them.
They definitely deserve a lot of the flak that they’ve gotten for some of their moves, but the vast majority of decisions they’ve made have been good and have paid dividends. The D-backs had 64 wins last year, and have 43 this year with three games left before the All-Star Break.
I’m not saying that they’re geniuses, or that they’re even good, but the fact that the “community” ranked them as 2nd-worst in baseball is a testament to the tone that Fangraphs writers generally take when they write about the D-backs. I love this website, but as a Diamondbacks fans it is a huge turn-off that a bunch of “professional” baseball writers constantly bash my team, to a degree that is not deserved.
Now you can tell me that I’m overreacting because I’m a D-backs fan, and that the only reason they receive criticism is because they deserve it. But the truth is that you guys have a personal vendetta because the Diamondbacks seem to (at least publicly) reject SABRmetrics, and they behave as if they know better than than the new-school. They absolutely don’t, and I wish they would embrace advanced stats, but because they try to be more “traditional,” people like Dave Cameron get their panties twisted and take it personally.
When you play in the dirt, you wake up with grit
You know the whole “grit” thing was from the previous front office, right?
I know it’s hard to keep up with the times.
“get their panties twisted”? way to show your true colors. casual sexism and ignorance? of course you’re a dbacks fan. i bet you loved their being bullies and stereotypically macho too. enjoy your team of morons and douchebags in the cesspool of hatred that is arizona.
I’m a bleeding heart liberal bud, but way to use semantics to deflect anything I actually had to say about baseball. If you’re talking about “getting your panties in a bunch” as a sexist remark rather than a commonly used figure of speech, I guess you’ve got bigger problems than baseball games
What good moves have they made? About the only one that stands out to me as a good deal is Didi for Leyba and Ray. I’m withholding judgement on the Trumbo trade. Other than that there’s a bunch of meh deals and a number of WTFs (Tomas, Yoan Lopez, Touki, not getting a catcher).
The only one of those that is truly a “WTF” is the Touki trade.
– The Tomas experiment at 3B failed but they only brought him up because Lamb got hurt. Otherwise, he’s been a great hitter and not terrible defensively in the OF. Definitely not a WTF.
– Yoan Lopez isn’t the best situation but it’s not a “WTF”. The Dbacks don’t have the money to dump into IFA so they went big on one player they liked. Too early to judge.
– What catcher exactly should they have gotten? Dioner Navarro has 0 WAR in 98 PA. And now Castillo, acquired in the Trumbo deal, already has 0.8 WAR. The market wasn’t flush with catchers and the team saw no need to overpay for one. Not a “WTF”.
Meanwhile…
– The Diamondbacks cut a lot of salary from the previous administration (Ross, Cahill, Montero)
– Didn’t overpay any free agents in the offseason and stuck with their youth (see Lamb, Ahmed, Pollock, Inciarte for hitters; De La Rosa, Ray, Bradley, etc. for pitchers).
– Stood by Ahmed at SS (looking better and better)
– Traded away Miley for young starters with high ceilings (De La Rosa has been inconsistent but incredibly good at times), saving money in the process.
Honestly, the only other thing besides the Touki trade that has been really questionable is the Hellickson trade, but the Dbacks didn’t really give up that much. Hellickson has been better and his peripherals are decent.
You can disagree on the value of these moves, and that’s fine, but to say the new front office is second worst is quite laughable.
Granted, the Hellickson trade and especially the Touki trade were head-scratchers, to say the least.
I just don’t think this FO deserves all the hate it gets, at least not yet. Let’s wait until the product on the field comes up in flames before we say with a straight face that this FO is worse than that of the Mariners, the Rockies, the Padres, or the Marlins. It’s just a bit much.
I think Oakland’s front office has been dropping the ball for the past year.
Additionally, the A’s do not seem to draft very well. The A’s rarely have any players go through player development and reach the major leagues and be contributors to the big club. I don’t know if that’s because guys get traded before they reach the majors or because we just suck at college and prep scouting.
The a’s are fine. This offseason i think they need to sell some pitching but everyones hating on the donaldson trade but lawrie and gravemen have been good. Barreto is a top 50 prospect and sean nolan can do whatever.
Another example of people placing WAY too much stock in a team’s minor league system.
I went back BEFORE the 2012 and 2013 seasons and looked at the minor league rankings at baseball prospectus and there were 3 teams that were ranked in their top 6 teams for BOTH years (St. Louis, Texas, San Diego).
and here’s the 4 teams that were ranked in the bottom 6 minor league systems in BOTH those years (San Francisco, Chicago White Sox, Detroit and Milwaukee).
I think a huge missing link in analyzing an organization’s strength is how well they convert their talent into productive major leaguers.
The Giants stick out as an example of an organization that gets the most out of what they have. All the Joe Paniks and Chris Hestons add up to a team that consistently beats expectations.
The problem with the Mets is whether or not ownership is included in “front office” I think. Some people interpreted the poll as how did the GM do with the budget he had while others punished ownership for not giving the funds necessary to run the team properly when they clearly should be there.
There’s also a feeling among many Mets fans that Sandy is basically a PR guy who came in to shield ownership from the Madoff fallout. I’m not saying they’re right, but I think it’s understandable.
I’m a Jays fan who is constantly frustrated by Anthopoulos’ many changes in strategy, poor track record of player development, befuddling media presence, and oversight of the Dickey trade (I voted Pretty Bad). I can understand the sizeable “Average” vote, but I’m really struggling with the plurality of votes for “Pretty Good,” given that the Jays have never really contended for a playoff spot during Anthopoulos’s extensive tenure as GM/senior FO staff. My hypotheses for this phenomenon include:
1) Bautista, Encarnacion and Donaldson outweigh all wrongdoing.
2) People blame ownership for most of the team’s failings, despite being a top 10 payroll.
3) People believe that this year’s deeply flawed team will make the playoffs, and that outweighs all wrongdoing.
4) Significant belief in the strength of the farm system.
The only team in the history of baseball to have their offices raided by the FBI and now it appears that upper management individuals will be tried and face prison for stealing private data from most of the teams in baseball.
And this is considered the best run front office in baseball? It is beyond ridiculous. The Cardinals should be banned from the playoffs. Most egregious level of cheating in American sports history.
Just curious about what you mean by stealing data from most MLB teams. I thought it was only houston they ****** over.
The data the Cardinals stole included detailed communication with most teams regarding trade proposals, etc.
This would be of great advantage to know what other teams were offering in trades. It is corporate espionage pure and simple.
Oh I agree. I think it’s interesting how every gives Moz a pass like he didn’t know anything. If he didn’t know anything he’s not as good of a GM as we act like he is. He’s no dummy and is using MLB and Stl officials are shields. I’m also not for very strict penalties on cheating. It’s one of the best parts of playing baseball, at every level from little league up. Being a Dodgers fan I could get behind a playoff suspension though. It’s also interesting how so many gloss over the enormous competitive advantage they gained. It helped out way more than any baseball writers I’ve read are willing to admit.
A playoff ban wouldn’t solve anything, except to allow the Cards to go into full 76’ers mode and load up on future talent way more than the Astros have recently done.
Lifetime bans for all involved, like the Black Sox scandal, is a must. MLB should also penalize the Cards for the next 5-10 years by removing their share of any pooled MLB revenues, forfeiture of amateur draft picks, limits on international signings, and reducing their 40-man roster to a 30 or 35 man limit.
But a playoff ban would have a lot of negative consequences for the whole sport.
Most of these comments are just people talking about their favorite teams and why they’re too high/low, but as a Nationals fan, I think Mike Rizzo and Co. having the highest “Pretty Good” rating of any team is as accurate as it gets
I don’t appreciate me opinion of the phillies front office being disregarded as “trolling”.
IMO, the Giants are overrated here. If we ignore the playoff results (which we do under other circumstances), they’ve made the playoffs less than half the time with Sabean as the GM with a payroll in the top 5-10.
The strength seems to be player development, but keep in mind they had so little confidence in Panik that they signed Uggla instead of starting him last year, and so little confidence in Duffy that they signed McGehee to start over him this year.
Everyone in the NL West knows Bochy is true reason the win every few years.
I think the real strength is finding bargain bin players (often minor league free agents) who can be productive contributors.
2010: Andres Torres, Aubrey Huff
2011: Ryan Vogelsong
2012: Gregor Blanco
2013: Jean Machi (slim pickings this season)
2014: Yusmeiro Petit
2015: Nori Aoki
How are the Reds not #28-29? They took a solid young core, filled it with crappy veterans and terrible contracts, and now are looking at selling just 3 years after 2012, in which they were a young team with a great future.
I’m excited by the bread! Gimmie that bread, man!
That’s a very simple graph, but it shows a pretty damn strong relationship between front-office rating and team winning percentage at the time the polls were posted.
This is confusing correlation with causation. For sure winning and have a good front office go together. But I’d be inclined to believe having a good front office leads to winning not the other way around.
For sure the Cubs are winning because of the rebuild put in place by the front office. The strategy to sign #3 starters and flip them in July for front line players has worked quite well. (Luck and player development play a large part as well.) The Mariners won last year in spite of their front office; this year once again the short comings of the front office are biting them.
And it’s true in many cases we don’t know enough about a FO and are making guesses. And if the FO is great but hamstrung by ownership choices (Mets, Angels, Marlins), we don’t know how to evaluate that.
I don’t see why the Brewers are ranked so low, other than their crappy win-loss record this year. They have the smallest market size, a horrible TV contract, they haven’t had the luxury of a top-10 pick since 2007, yet they have the 16th best record since 2010.
I would agree that they’ve held out too long on their current team, but I don’t see how they could possibly be worse run than the Padres, White Sox, or Royals.
Miami’s rating is interesting. I can’t evaluate their *current* FO because they keep shuffling heads, but over recent years their FO has been pretty damn sharp, in service of Loria who is shitty and should feel shitty.
Can someone explain to me why the Pirates are that high? I don’t think they are a bad front office by any means. I would have voted them “pretty good”. But why did so many of you vote “very good”? No disrespect here, just someone who doesn’t really follow their team that much and wondering what puts them over clubs like OAK, LA, SF, TB etc.
LAD should be no. 1 by leaps and bounds. And I’m no LAD fan by any means.
The Pirates FO succeeds despite having limited financial resources with which to build a team. They have been efficient and effective.
Seems like an odd choice to plot this on 2015 win rates and not a multi-year average.