Organizational Rankings: #8 – Atlanta
The Braves are not the best team in their division, and their best bet for a playoff berth in 2010 is to steal the Wild Card from the NL West runner-up. But their future is so bright that you need sunglasses to look directly at it, and given the core they have to build around, they may be preparing for another long run of division titles.
Most organizations would kill to have one of Jason Heyward, Brian McCann, Tommy Hanson, or Yunel Escobar. The Braves, of course, have all four, and the talent doesn’t end there. Jair Jurrjens isn’t as good as his ERA would suggest, but he’s still a quality young arm. Even the young-ish role players, such as Martin Prado and Melky Cabrera, can play. And, of course, there’s still the old guard hanging around providing value for the next few years – Chipper Jones, Tim Hudson, Derek Lowe, Troy Glaus, and Billy Wagner still have something left in the tank.
The result is a roster that is a blend of premium young talent and enough of a supporting cast to play winning baseball right now. The team can hit, the rotation is deep, and they don’t have a single obvious hole on the roster. The only real question is whether the kids can develop fast enough to still make a run at a World Series before the veterans decline beyond the point of usefulness.
As Eno covered over on ESPN yesterday, expectations for Heyward’s value in 2010 have to be somewhat muted. Very few players are above average at age 20, even the phenoms. By the time he comes into his own, and top prospects such as Julio Teheren, Freddie Freeman, and Arodys Vizcaino arrive in Atlanta, the sun will likely be setting on the careers of Jones, Hudson, Lowe, and Wagner. Not every team is able to handle the transition well, as there is a natural pull to go for it all while the guys you have can still produce, but the Braves have enough depth of prospects that they may be able to have their cake and eat it too – making sure the big league team can win while still breaking in the best of the young players from the farm.
Put simply, the Braves are a player development machine, and with the pipeline of talent they’ve established, they should be good for a long time. It might not result in October baseball this year, but if you’re an Atlanta fan, there is a lot to be excited about.
Dave is the Managing Editor of FanGraphs.
I can’t wait to see the complaints about where you rank the Mariners and Rangers on this list. Keep up the good work Dave. Go M’s!
The response will be funny, I’m sure. People will get very worked up about something not worth getting very worked up about. I’m a little surprised to see the Braves below the M’s or the Rangers. I would have ranked them higher than the M’s, anyway, but i’m not going to flip out over small differences.
I thought this too, but you’re exactly right. Dave himself said that once we start getting into the top 10 there are a lot of minor differences that make it hard to rank the teams. I think all of the teams in the Top 10 can feel pretty good about their futures
That’s the thing though, the Ms should be somewhere from 9 to 13 not top, it’s a pretty big difference. The Twins high ranking is silly as well, are we just assuming the new balllpark revenue = productive free agent additions, because I can tell you as a Dodger fan, it don’t work that way.
That opening sentence should quiet many of the complaints about the ranking of Philadelphia.
Philadelphia is very good, and right now they’re the best team in their division. But that doesn’t mean the organization overall is the best in the division. You’re not measuring what some people think you’re measuring, so they disagree with your findings erroneously.
What exactly is being measured?
The Braves ranking (and most of the ones that follow, I’m guessing) is the result of fetishizing prospects who haven’t proven enough (or anything at all) at the mlb level yet. So many can’t miss superstuds *cough* Andy Marte *cough* wind up being just OK, or worse, but while they’re still full of potential, the sky seems the limit. In the NL, the Phillies, Cards, and Dodgers are, oddly enough, getting penalized for their (proven) record of success (bor-ring!) while the Braves in particular suffer not at all for getting nowhere. It’s grading on a warped curve.
For any single prospect, you’d have a point. But when you have a cadre of them, like Atlanta, Texas and Tampa do, some are going to stick and be awesome.
I dunno, I think the series expressed a lot more love for Yunel Escobar, Brian McCann, Tommy Hanson, Jair Jurrjens Martin Prado, and Melky Cabrera, who are all young, cost controlled, and under team control for a long time. And they’re all proven MLB talents. Not stars, certainly, though McCann might push 6 WAR eventually, but all solid players.
It’s not the best farm system out there, but they have baseball’s top prospects, and several pitchers who have a future in the bigs to go with him. Plus a good bit of money coming off the books before Heyward reaches arbitration.
What Kevin S said. A lot of prospects turn out terrible or average, but A Rod, Pujols, Halladay, Lincecum, these guys were all prospects at one time. And many of them were highly touted prospects. When you already have a young successful core and have several highly touted prospects on the way, some of them are going to stick. And that makes for a very good team.
I’m coming a bit late to the party – can someone post a list of organizational reviews that Fangraphs has done to date? There seems to be no search available other than player search..
Thanks!
It’s kind of hard to find. But if you click on recent articles, then on the side there is a list of categories. Click organizational rankings. (Almost) all of the articles are on there. A few seem to be miss-labeled.
Also, to get to the search feature for articles you’ll have to click on the “Blogs” button (next to “Home”). After which, the search box will be to the right where it says “Search all Blogs.” Doing a search on “Organizational Rankings” will pull up results from both this year and last year’s rankings.
Click on Dave’s name in the FanGraphs Authors column. That’s the easiest way.
So….
#7: Mariners
#6: Rockies
#5: Rangers
#4: Twins
#3: Rays
#2: Yankees
#1: Red Sox
Looks like
#7 Rockies
#6 Twins
#5 Rangers
#4 Mariners
#3 Rays
#2 Red Sox
#1 Yankees
The Yankees have proven that they can turn a (relative) disaster into a Championship team in a year. I don’t think any other team is capable of that. So, Yankees at 1!
The Mariners is based on where I think they’ll be ranked.. >_>.
Current Talent:6/10
Future Talent:5/10
Front Office:35/10
It’s an incredible 46/30!
Where you think they will, thought definitely not where they deserve to be ranked, lol.
I’ll guess (hopefully)
7. Mariners
6. Rockies
5. Twins
4. Rangers
3. Red Sox
2. Rays
1. Yankees
I am AlextheBrave! We at Braves Nation shall once again return to our proper place atop the preseason PECOTA leader boards led by our fearless leader, Larry Jones and his magnificent bat wonder boy. It does not matter that we traded our best starter for a 4th outfield and a single prospect with 77IPs in single A ball. The Braves are so superior to all others in every aspect of the game when compared to the other NL East teams. Especially the Phillies since it is intuitively obvious that every Phillies is due to regress, while the Braves never regress! The 2010 Braves might finish 3rd in NL with 86 wins again but only because the other NL East teams played above their TRUE talent, but not because they were superior to the Braves. We will assimilate all in the future to be part of Braves Nation! Nationwide Tomahawk Chop at 5:30pm DST!!!
How does it feel to be a douchebag?
This is why nested comments suck, FanGraphs. Half-hour heros.
Why is there a rating button with no filter?
..it IS the end of the month..
I think this may be directed at me since I had the gall to comment in the Phils article with a possible argument for the Braves over the Phillies. At no point did I disparage the Phillies or puff up the Braves, I just pointed out the lack of talent that has come through the Phillies system since the 2003 draft or so and the number of good, young players the Braves have locked up through at least 2013.
Just imagine how good the Braves would be if they still had Feliz, Saltalamacchia, Andrus
You’re right about Feliz, and in a year or two they’ll really wish they hadn’t traded Andrus, but what good is Saltalamacchia to Atlanta? David Ross, Atlanta’s back-up catcher, is a better hitter than Salty has been to date.
I was just thinking the same thing. Feliz, Andrus, I’m sure they could even find a use for Harrison somewhere (maybe more bullpen).
You’ve got to be kidding.
It’s okay to refer to the Brave’s old players as the Old Guard who have something left in the tank, but the Phillies’s still productive old(ish) players are off their prime and declining?
It’s okay to be high on Heyward, and it’s fine to say Heyward and Hanson (along with McCann) push the Braves into the top 8, and I pretty much agree, but the Braves and their aging players are not a plus for them.
Of course Chipper has something left in the tank. He’s talked about retiring if he can’t live up to his own expectations, because he performed poorly last year, but things are looking up for him!
Honestly, I won’t bicker over the numbers (other than when you put the Mariners somewhere in the top 5), but the justification is ridiculous.
Oh, and what’s with the Twins being so high? Did something huge happen?
Mauer+New Stadium=?
P.S. Not a criticism of the series, or the site, both of which I love.
I’m just against the justifications.
The entire Phillies article was written anticipating backlash and portrays the team from a very skewed angle. This one is more fairly written, though probably is a bit too positive.
Oh, and no mention of the Saito+Wagner disaster? I thought we hated the Wagner and Saito signings.
I was about to post this same exact thing. The Brave’s core being old is a positive while it’s a negative for the Phillies? Really? Troy Glaus? That’s a joke right. Howard, Utley, Rollins and Werth are all old and declining but Troy Glaus is helping lead the Braves to the promise land in the next 5 years?
Troy Glaus is signed to a one year deal for $2 million. There’s zero organizational committment to him.
Faithdies: oh I’m so glad you god the memo about the Glaus 5 year deal signing.
also, when posting, it helps to be as ignorant and stupid as possible. Thank you.
Glaus is holding the position for Freddie Freeman for one year. Howard et al are holding their positions for older versions of themselves. We’re looking at several years here.
And it’s not the core of the Braves that is old. They are young up the middle and in the OF corners and soon to be young at 1b.
The whole point is that the Braves core isn’t old. They have Jurrjens, Hanson, McCann, Escobar, Prado, and Heyward as their core. Feel free to name any similar players on the Phils.
The one glaring weakness I see with their current roster is a lack of power. Does anyone on their roster other than Glaus even have a 5% chance of hitting 30HR’s? How many players on the current roster can even slug .500? McCann, Chipper and Glaus and thats about it (and how many games will those last 2 guys play?). Don’t get me wrong, I like line drive hitters like Chipper, Escobar, Prado, Diaz, Cabrera & Heyward and I understand they have offensive value. But sometimes you just need a Ryan Howard or a Chase Utley or a Jayson Werth to come up and hit a 3 run jack know what I mean?
Chicks may dig the long ball, but Fangraphs dig the walk. As we members of BravesNation (c) know walks are more correlated with winngin! Especially winning computer simulations with regression to mean winning percentages! Correlation === Casusation!! Sit back and Rejoice — All hail Bobby Cox
Question. Did the Braves piss in your Cheerios?
I do worry about the power issue, but it’s nice to have a number of hitters who know how to get on base. I’d be surprised if anyone on the team hit 30 dingers, and it will be interesting to see whether they can overcome that.
Jason Werth has slugged over .500 once in his career (barely) and he did so playing half his games at CBP. McCann has slugged over .500 twice (including a .572 season) despite playing half his games at Turner Field. McCann is a better power hitter than Werth. The Braves may not have an Utley or Howard, but don’t put Werth anywhere near that category.
The Braves are set up to own the division for a long time.Their young core in a year or two rivals the best in baseball.
The Phillies are still the favorites this year, but if they stumble, the Braves could be “in there.” And not just with a wildcard.