Here Are All 30 Organizational Ratings
The other day, I asked you to participate in a community project. The polling was both simple and very complicated — there was one poll for every team, and I asked each of you to issue a rating for your favorite team, based on basically everything. There were six options, going from 0 to 5, with 0 being the worst, and 5 being the best. I wanted to end up with a landscape of organizational health. Ratings were to be based on both short-term and long-term considerations, and while I know that crowdsourcing doesn’t always suss out the truth, we can’t know the *actual* truths. So we might as well see what the community thinks.
The polling and ensuing conversation is always fun, but there’s nothing quite like the analysis, whenever I run a community polling project. For this one, this morning, I collected all the votes and calculated all the necessary numbers. Below, your FanGraphs community organizational ratings, as of this very week in January 2017.
The plot shows average ratings for all 30 teams, and for those of you who are curious, I made some minor adjustments to wipe out very obvious trolling. I’d always prefer that trolling not exist in the first place, but at least the trolls make themselves stand out. My adjustments did basically nothing to the final order of things. The adjustments were more for me than for you.
Unsurprisingly, according to the audience, the Cubs organization is in the best position in the game. Now, the Cubs just won the World freaking Series, so maybe there’s a little recency bias in there, but they’re clearly in excellent shape. The Cubs are one of the most valuable organizations, with very competitive resources, and although the farm system has been partially drained, the major-league roster is maybe the best in existence, and it’s young. Kris Bryant is under team control for five more years. Anthony Rizzo, five more years. Kyle Schwarber, five more years. Kyle Hendricks, four more years. Addison Russell, five more years. (Jason Heyward, seven more years!) On it goes. The Cubs have an enviable core, and they’re great today. No one’s surprised.
It’s maybe a little surprising to see the Indians in second, since they don’t have the Cubs’ money. They also have what’s probably an average farm system. But they’re also great today, and the roster has a good amount of youth, and I think there’s a lot of faith in what the front office has been doing. In any case, the Indians aren’t far from the Red Sox and Dodgers, two financial powerhouses with both youth and immediate title aspirations. Los Angeles, to me, is positioned better than Boston, but who am I to disagree with so many of you?
After the top four, there’s a healthy drop-off. Maybe that’s where you draw the line for Tier 1. I won’t go through every single team, but I will note that the overall average rating is 2.75. The teams on either side of the average are the Braves and the Orioles. The Braves definitely don’t look good right now, but Keith Law just gave them the No. 1 farm-system ranking. Pretty obviously, the Braves’ positive votes were made with an eye toward sustainable success a little down the line.
The lowest tier, to me, might or might not include the Angels. The Angels are one of seven teams with an average rating under 2, but there’s also a decent gap between them and the Marlins. If you leave the Angels out, you’re left with the Marlins, A’s, Twins, Diamondbacks, Padres, and Reds. None of those six teams are expected to be good right away, and only two of them have top-10 farm systems, according to Law. Which is interesting! Law gave the Padres farm his No. 3 ranking. Still, they’re 29th here, as an organization. The Reds come out ever so barely worse, with the worst organizational rating on FanGraphs. Law ranked their farm eighth. He put the Diamondbacks farm dead last, but I guess their superior big-league roster for today helped keep them out of the FanGraphs basement.
Cubs organization: best in baseball, according to you. Reds organization: worst in baseball, according to you. Padres organization: basically as bad as the Reds. Maybe San Diego has the superior farm system, but they also have an insane general manager. I’m just the messenger, in this case. You all put together the messages.
The top eight teams, by rating, all have top-10 projected 2017 records, according to Steamer. The highest rating for an average team belongs to the Yankees. Which, yeah, they have money, and they have a terrific farm system. The highest rating for a bad team belongs to the Braves. Meanwhile, the lowest rating for a good team belongs to the Angels. I’m going to guess this is in large part because the community doesn’t believe in the Angels’ Steamer projection. So then we’d be looking at the Mariners, who are 13th by rating, but 11th by projected 2017 record. Ehh.
For fun, I decided to run a very simple regression, trying to find an expected organizational rating based just on projected 2017 record, and Keith Law’s farm-system rankings. It actually worked pretty well, with an ultimate R-squared value of 0.78. Note that this only indirectly considers front-office identities and financial resources. By weight, when it came to the community ratings, projected 2017 record was 2.74 times more important than Law’s farm rankings. That might surprise you, or it might not. Here’s a plot of it all!
The team with the biggest positive difference between actual rating and expected rating: the Brewers, at +0.85. We’ve probably played a role in this, since we’ve been fairly positive about the Brewers’ rebuild. The Cubs are second, at +0.76, and I bet that has to do with all the team control remaining on the big-league roster. Then you get the Orioles, at +0.67. They have neither a strong farm nor a strong roster, but at some point you just get used to a ballclub overachieving.
The team with the biggest negative difference between actual rating and expected rating: the Angels, at -1.15. They take this running away, as it sure seems like people don’t trust their 2017 roster at all. Second-worst is the Reds, all the way up at -0.60. The big-league team seems real bad, and there might not be a lot of trust in the prospects or in the front office. Then the Padres are there, at -0.56. That roster is also quite bad, and much of the farm system’s best talent is in the lower levels, which means there’s a lot that could go wrong. Padres fan spirits aren’t high.
I don’t have anything left to say, for the moment. Thank you again for allowing me to run this project. I love you, and you are great.
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 grew up in Ohio and live in Chicago, so there is no bias here.
Community, don’t sleep on the Pads. Their outfield has an average age of 24.9 (Jank, Margot, Renfroe, Dickerson), and they all look like they can be great.
OF – covered
C – Great year last year (albeit PCL)
1B – covered (health?)
2B – high BB%, ISO over .200 since 2011 minus 360 PA
SS – ?
3B – Solarte?
SP – ?
RP – ?
Closer – Capps
and they’re only paying out $55 million this year. Puts them at 2nd to last for money on the books, with the exception of the Brewers.
Their ACTIVE payroll is at $18.5 million. They have money to blow.
They would need find $120M in value from the pitching and there just isn’t anyone available. Best case scenario is that Espinosa and Cal Quantril are both aces and Pads are back by 2020.
Only one of their regular position players is projected for above league average offensive production. Renfroe and Margot are interesting. The rest of the young outfield are actually 25-26 year olds with <500 MLB PAs, not prospects, nor regulars on a good team, and probably would not crack the 40 man on a contender. Schimpf might be sneaky OK, Solarte close to average, and Meyers should be fine. Pitching staff… shudder. This team is last place in the NL west. The Dodgers and Giants, sleeping, could probably beat them as their reserves are better in most positions than the Pads starters.
100% agree they will be terrible this year, and probably the next two years. The ranking is for the organization, so I took that to mean future as well.
Sure. I understand. I’m cautious because so much of the talent is below high-A. Seeing the Padres as being a good team in 2020 is not a stretch. However, given the way the Dodgers are set up, they look more like wildcard contenders in the future.
Myers(not Meyers), Solarte and Schimpf are all projected for above league average offensive production. That is 3 in the infield alone. Alex Dickerson is projected as a 106 wRC+ and 110 OPS+. We haven’t even gotten to Margot and Renfroe yet. Relief pitching is strong and barring trades will be top 10 in baseball. The Padres could very well finish last in the NL West, but it won’t be because of offense. It will be because of starting pitching.
i’m a padres fan. they have the chance to be average to above average offensively and defensively. the pitching staff is the worst of my lifetime and i remember staffs that were headlined by eric stults and featured kip wells and jeff suppan back from the dead.
They’re a bad mlb team, with a farm system that is mostly far away and they play in a division with the LAD and Giants who are both rich. If everything goes right, they could be good in 4-5 years, I guess. But they will still have to get past those 2 teams and the dodgers farm and young mlb assets are really good on top of their huge financial advantage. They have potential, but there is a ton of risk associated with predicting them as good
The Padres have a terrible rotation, a bad bullpen, and essentially no shortstop. Even though everything else is at least acceptable (if not good), I’m still going to sleep on them.
I am surprised Colorado is as high as they are.
Remember when the Padres won the offseason a few years ago? Recency bias, methinks.
I don’t think most Rockies fans are particularly impressed with this offseason. They do have the best young starting pitching they’ve ever had with more depth behind it.
You should never be surprised that Colorado is high.
John Denver sucks…
Rockies fans are actually pretty optimistic about the future. We aren’t expecting playoffs this year but we do expect to be in the WC hunt until the end.
“Padres organization: basically as bad as the Reds. Maybe San Diego has the superior farm system, but they also have an insane general manager”
The author thinks AJ Preller is “insane” and deduces that’s why the fans rated them low in a poll. Thats funny I voted in the poll and I didn’t see the “GM is insane” option.
In 2 or 3 years (2019, 2020) you’ll be writing an article about how awesome and fast the Padres built the best club in NL.
BEST in the NL in two years? Come on man! GET WOKE!
but watch our “insane” Gm flip Travis Wood or Ryan Schimp for a top prospect in all of baseball like he did Drew Pomeraz last year.
Gonna be hard when he can’t lie about medicals anymore.
And seriously, best team? They have a bunch of far away talent that carries huge risk. You sound like pads fans from a couple years ago overrating what their team really is.
Yes the best in the NL… and don’t ask me, ask Jeff Sullivan he is the one who will be writing the article in 2-3 years.
Please go back to espn and facebook boards.
no thx, but i appreciate your manners fangraphs’ policeman. “Every Article, Every Day” the fangraphs’ police dept. motto.
Preller also unloaded Turner, Grandal, Fried and Ross for Kemp, Kimbrel, Upton and Myers.
Preller also got Margot, Espinoza, Asuaje, Guerra, Tatis Jr. and others in trades. He also signed what is being called the best international free agent crop in history.
I’ll take Turner, Grandal, Fried, Ross + however much money they ended up spending between absorbing upton and Kemp/HO.
I like some things that the Pads have done, and I especially enjoy how well Preller undid much of his dud of a winter from two years ago. It basically didn’t punish him at all (particularly thanks to that stellar Kimbrel trade with Dombo).
That said, in 2019, Kris Bryant will be 27, Anthony Rizzo will be 29, Kyle Hendricks will be 29, Addison Russell will be 25, Javy Baez will be 26, Willson Contreras will turn 27, Jason Heyward will be 29 (or will have freed up an additional $20M of payroll space), and Kyle Schwarber will be 26. (And Albert Almora will be 25 and Ian Happ will be 24.)
Even if the $37M allotted to the aged Jon Lester (35) and Ben Zobrist (turns 38) is dead weight on the books, the group above projects to earn only about $73.4M in 2019 bringing the payroll to $110.4M for these 12 players. The club should reasonably have about $100M with which to build a bullpen and nab a couple of starting pitchers.
If the Pads eclipse those Cubs, I’ll gladly write the article on how they did it while my jaw lives on the floor.
Why even mention the cubs? Just look at the padres own division.
Dodgers have just as good of a system with more m.l. ready or close talent, more money and better young players already rostered.
Rockies are same as Dodgers but with less payroll and a bad front office. But still tons of talent on the m.l roster and minors that’s as good If not better but less risky.
Giants, 2-3 years should still be within their window. After that I could see them falling back, I’ll give that.
Depends which direction the dbacks Go if they will be better or not.
I think the most surprising for me was to see the Yankees a hair above the Mets.
The hubris of Yankee fans continually surprises me. Also Mets officially sleeper status or is the creeping cynicism of Met fans at play here?
No confidence in ownership and the veteran bias that Terry Collins has is disturbing.
Mets look good for several years, but with their pitcher health, Conforto and d’Arnaud collapsing, and Wright’s career in jeopardy, it feels like everything that makes their organization so appealing long term is in doubt.
I think several years (4-5?) is long-term in professional baseball these days. I think the Mets are pretty solid for that duration, especially if Ahmed Rosario is the real deal.
The Yankees have a Top 3 farm system, are opening up a ton of payroll space next offseason, and haven’t lost more than 78 games since 1992.
If anything, Yankees fans are being conservative by putting them closer to 3 than 4.
Just wait until the Yanks throw a combined $1 billion at Harper & Machado after the 2018 season. 2019’s gonna be LIT in the Bronx.
Yankees have a good farm system and lots of money. Mets have a chance at a good team the next couple years and lots of injury concerns with a meh system and far less money.
Of course, the Padres have that farm system because their “insane” general manager completely overhauled, and significantly improved it, while also putting a more watchable team on the field than they’ve had in years.
He didn’t improve it over the 2015 offseason. He cratered it. Then the team ended up being hardly more watchable. Then he improved it and made the MLB team unwatchable again. It’s not entirely clear their system is better now than when Preller took over, meaning they, what, ran in place? Yay?
Tribe has a very good farm system. I would say top ten.
With Mejia in the majors and Zimmer soon to be, the Indians actually have middle-of-the-road or below average farm system.
Lol what? Mejia prolly starts in AA.
So you’re saying, if you take away a system’s best, closest prospects, it gets worse?
I find it fascinating that Royals fans, a year removed from back-to-back pennants, are so glum. I get that there’s a tendency to look forward, but if you understand that as a small market team, you need to sell-out for a precious few playoff pushes with a core, you also need to buy into the concept of regularly retooling. Yes, there’s an air of retooling around that team, but it’s not a full tear-down, and the organization is generally pretty deft. Cheer up, KC.
I don’t see how it could be a retooling when they are losing a ton of talent to FA, have limited money to replace losses, and have a poor farm system at the moment. I think KC fans are being realistic about the hopes of being good enough to contend in the next 5 years.
The poll was looking forward. Looking forward, it looks bad for them.
Yes, but the peak was a big contributing factor in the current trough. And that should be ok for a small market team.
I’m not sure how you are missing this. The poll asked what the fans thought of the team heading forward. That doesn’t take into account the time they won.
Going forward, the Royals look like a team that is in for quite a rough time. Thus, their fans aren’t seeing it as a bright time to come because it likely isn’t.
I’m sure if you ask if they are happy they sold out to win and did, they’ll say yes. But that doesn’t change what the question is actually asking.
i’m not missing it. your point is noted. the poll was not worded as specifically as you imply it was. but by all means, continue being condescending and belaboring a point based on irrational certitude of your own poor reading comprehension.
geez, maybe kansas city is just a miserable place.
“This isn’t just about the short-term; this isn’t just about 2017. Think of it as a rating of your team’s overall outlook, weighted according to your own priorities. Consider the players on the roster today. Consider their contract statuses. Consider the strength of the farm system. Consider the financial resources available, and consider the people responsible for how all that money gets assigned. In a sense, it’s a different way of asking how many games you think a team will win over the coming five or 10 years. ”
Outlook (noun) prospect of the future
The last sentence says exactly that it is about looking forward. It isn’t my poor reading comprehension that is at issue here.
And as I recall, looking back the polling was bad for them also. Hmmm….
The problem is twofold. First, the fans may recognize it’s not a full tear-down, but to avoid one the organization had to get rid of two of its most popular players.
Second, this poll went up the day after Ventura’s death broke. That both drags down moods directly and drags down expectations for the future.
“Please rate everything” was a nice, broad poll question. The departure of beloved players, both across the country and across the great divide, might weigh on people.
As a die-hard Reds fan, the team would be very, very hard to watch if Votto were to become injured, especially if Brandon Phillips and Zack Cozart are still manning the middle infield this season instead of Jose Peraza and Dilson Herrera.
Watching Votto’s mastery 4 times per game makes the 3 hours bearable, as long as you have MLB.tv’s away broadcast.
I voted for terrible based on Marty alone.
This is a generous assessment of SFG. The big club is good but not much more than a wild-card mixer for the foreseeable future….and after the foreseeable future is a bad farm system’s output. Their war chest can’t save them, given what free agency looks like these days.
Looks about right. I’m a Reds fan, and even I hate them right now.
The anti-Angels bias here is so strong. I’m chalking it up to the fact that most fans are just pissed that Mike Trout isn’t playing in October. I happen to think that there is plenty of reason to believe that ownership/management has learned from their mistakes.
I think folks also have to remember that this is a team that has $90M committed to next year (plus arb raises). They should have anywhere from $40-50M to spend without many glaring holes. If they play well in 2017 they have a good shot at the post-season. If they play poorly, they’ll have several semi-valuable pieces to sell off to restock the farm.
The Angels clearly aren’t in a similar position to the Cubs or Dodgers but including them in the same general vicinity as Miami, Minnesota, and Oakland is just flat out nuts.
I think they are in a place that feels kind of hopeless to some. In some ways, it is better to be a bad team than a mediocre one. Primarily, if a team can’t compete, it is best to recognize that and focus on extracting future value from the current season. Therefore, if a team is good enough to think they can compete and not good enough to actually do it, that can just delay a needed rebuild.
You say they have a shot at the postseason. While I’m not going to argue that they have no shot, I would argue that their shot is worse than it appears, because their farm is so bad. If a team is in a middle position, then a good farm gives them a few things:
-a chance to get unexpected good performance from young players
-depth in case they lose players that they are counting on
-trade value for filling major needs at the deadline if they are in position to use it
With a bad farm and a shallow bench, they really need to hope everything goes right more so than a deeper team has to. If things don’t go right, then they don’t have a good farm from which to jumpstart a rebuild.
Biggest shock to me is that the Angels are 7th lowest. Yes, their farm system stinks, but they have money and a decent big league club that should be in the wild card hunt. AND THEY HAVE MIKE TROUT. Angel fans – please appreciate that you get to watch one of the best baseball players ever in his prime.
The Angels have two perception problems:
– Trout casts a giant shadow
– their pitchers don’t
Not saying their pitching is bad; but they don’t bring a rock solid expectation of durability and domination. The whole article is about perception vs projection and the Angels are exhibit A.
Are Dodger fans underrating their team? Another question: Should Dodger fans be as/more excited than Cubs fans? ~4.5 on Jeff’s expected average ranking is well ahead of the next grouping.
Pirates spent three years in playoffs, and with injuries to McCutchen and Cole missed last year. I would rank Pittsburgh above these clubs who do NOT have similar recent success, coupled with their farm systems: NYM, NYY, Sea, TOR and TX.
Pittsburgh ought to slot right behind StL, NOT immediately ahead of ATL.
So the R-Squared with 2017 projected records is 0.78. What’s the correlation with 2016 actual records or 2015-16 combined? I suspect it’s even higher.
love you too Jeff.
With a casual passing, I feel you could reasonably explain these rankings by recent record and size of fan base. I had hoped the data was in downloadable format to try and test that hypothesis.
I am a SDN fan and while I like what Preller has done since the 2015 debacle, and while the early reviews of the farm are very good, it is just way too early to be doing any chest beating. It would be nice just to whiff the playoffs again. And it is not going to be much fun to watch them for a few years. Yes, I equate fun with winning.
As an aside, I really get frustrated with the casual acceptance of the disparity in financial resources across teams, which generally (yes, there will be exceptions) keeps smaller market teams out of the playoffs. How is that healthy for the league? I am a guessing most of those commenters are fans of the “have’s” and not the “have nots”, and see the disparity in vague, analytic terms not personal ones as many do on the outside of deep resources.
Having just watched the NFL give a big middle finger to SD, I have no love of them, among many other horrible business practices, but the lack of financial advantage of one franchise vs. another makes the league much more interesting for fans.