What Makes a Good Organization?

One of the things that I don’t think I did all that well during the organizational rankings series is communicate how the three different sections (current talent, future talent, and management/ownership) were weighted. I should have been more clear about the relative importance of each, so, with that in mind, let’s talk about what makes a healthy organization.

To me, it starts at the top. Even if you have a talented team with a strong farm system, having executives in place who don’t value talent well or evaluate it well is a pretty significant hindrance. I don’t want to pick on the Mets too much, but let’s use them as an example.

A year ago, I rated them #5 in baseball on the strength of a roster that looked to be one of the best in the game. With Carlos Beltran, Jose Reyes, David Wright, and Johan Santana, they had four legitimate franchise players to build around, and they regularly run one of the highest payrolls in the game. I’ve never been much of an Omar Minaya fan, but that kind of talent and access to resources overwhelmed what I felt were shortcomings in the front office. I weighted the talent on the team more highly than the people putting the roster together. Whoops.

Players get hurt. Or, sometimes, they have bad years. A good management team can insulate a roster so that a couple of tough breaks don’t ruin a team, or at least make some solid moves to help the team recover when those bad breaks occur. The Mets didn’t do any of that. They threw a lot of money at bad baseball players, then stared in disbelief as the team fell apart. Their answer this winter? Throw a lot more money at a decent player who probably won’t age very well. And now, the Mets are a mess, despite the fact that they have some good players and some legitimate prospects.

Meanwhile, other teams without as much talent or money are building winning teams by finding value players and putting together rosters with depth to overcome injuries. They have front offices that understand where to find value in the market, and can put together a roster that can contend, even without four superstars or a $150 million payroll.

It isn’t just the current Mets; The Yankees didn’t win very often when they were poorly ran, even though they always had a lot of talent and a lot of money to spend. It’s easy to look around the game and find talented underachievers whose organizations are wallowing in the bottom of the standings because of poor management.

You don’t have to do things The FanGraphs Way, as I hope the respect we gave the Twins shows. But, it’s nearly impossible to win on a consistent basis without a front office that excels at creating value for their franchise. The teams that sustain success are the ones who are well run and have a process that leads to future development of players and the ability to acquire useful pieces to put together a roster. More than what you have on the field now, or in the farm system for later, it’s the people in the front office who determine how successful the organization will be.

In terms of how the three areas were weighted for the rankings series, it was roughly something like 45 percent management, 35 percent current talent, and 20 percent future talent. Having a roster full of good players, or a stocked farm system, only takes you so far. Without a front office that knows what they’re doing, it won’t last.