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.
Dave is the Managing Editor of FanGraphs.
Speaking of the twins, what is it about that organization and improbable runs by released minor leaguers? First Ortiz and now Garrett Jones.
David Ortiz was not in the Minor leagues and Garrett Jones…what were the twins supposed to do with him? Get rid of Morneau or Kubel?
Not sure I understand this rebuttal. Can Jones not play LF? Doesn’t Delmon Young currently play LF? Doesn’t Delmon Young kindof suck?
I’m not saying the Twins should have seen this coming, but it’s not like they couldn’t have made room for him if he were still around.
As much as Delmon does suck their still is some potential for him. From what Garrett Jones had done previously I think the Twins made the correct move at the time, he just came out of nowwhere. Saying that I still expect him to be a below average first baseman for his career.
Is Jones really supposed to have a great future, though? I know he had a heck of a rookie season, but I thought that he was a mediocre prospect at best.
‘couple of tough breaks’?
I would say losing most of your starting 8 position players, and some of the backups, and a couple of back ups to your back ups, plus a good chunk of your SP and at least one BP arm is more than a couple of ‘tough breaks’.
Show me one ML team that could possibly have the depth anywhere in their minor league system to overcome that. Not even the more expensive cross town Yankees could compensate.
That being said, the Mets have a knack for bringing in the expensive stars, but not much knack for having good role players to compliment them. In that, I agree.
I think the dramatic swing in a team like the Mets just goes to show how subjective these ranking were last year and this year. A team with basically the same core can go from being Top 5 to way out of the top 5 is an huge change.
I also can’t see how an item like ‘Revenue’ doesn’t get explicitly weighted. When the Yanks weren’t winning (I assume you mean 1987-1993) they were often outspent by a number of AL teams, for example, in 1990 the ROYALS spent more than the Yankess, in 1991&1992 the A’s spent more than the Yankees. That just doesn’t happen any more, and even if the managment of a team like the Yankees is inept, outspending the nearest team by 40-50mm gives them a huge advantage.
Ranking current talent only 35% just seems way too low to me, especially when we’ve seen runs from teams where their current talent stays together 5+ years.
IMO the team is better this year. From the lineup core you swap Bay for Delgado, Francoeur for Church, Barajas for Schneider. The rotation is still Santana, Maine, Ollie, and Pelf + one and the bullpen may be a step back on paper, but bullpens are largely touch-and-go and the closer is the same.
That said, I don’t know what about the Mets organization re: front office and support staffs would indicate quality this year or last. Minaya inexplicably jumps from one org strategy to another, the medical staff is constantly at odds with the FO which hampers injury diagnoses and recoveries, there is zero accountability to the GM outside of actually signing players, Dan Warthen is less a pitching coach and more a motivational speaker, the VP of Player Dev was never known for competence and eventually went batsh!t midseason, just stop me if I’m running on.
Liberty, Francoeur for Church is clear downgrade. Barajas for Schneider is, at best, a very sketchy upgrade, and is basically an even swap.
Moreover, last year, they hadn’t actually traded for Francoeur with the intent of making him an everyday right fielder, which was a good indicator of how poorly run the organization is. Then they gave Mike Jacobs a chance to win a job, in and of itself not a very bad idea, but then he wins a roster spot and ends up starting and batting clean-up on opening day over much better hitters. Moves like that will drop you down the rankings list pretty quickly.
Then there are decisions like inserting Mejia into the bullpen, rushing his development as a relief pitcher so he can help out an 80 win in a marginal fashion rather than spend time developing as a starter. Using a top starting prospect to help fill out a bullpen has been done before-Joba, David Price, to name a couple of recent examples-but those are competitive teams with high marginal win values. The Mets are going to need plenty of things to break their way just to finish third in the division at this point, so having the 8th inning locked down should been fairly low on their list of priorities.
I’d say the past year has given substantial reasons to drop the Mets lower on the ranking list.
To be somewhat fair, Murphy was supposed to be the starting 1B and got injured late in spring training
However, I completely agree with the overall point that having Mike Jacobs as your first injury backup for 1B is a terrible idea (where the hell did the guy they traded Wagner for go?)
Then I guess the ranking I would question the most is the Cubs; their non-FanGraphs Way has proven to be entirely unsuccessful in regards to running their minor league system. They continually rush players to the majors that seemingly have no business being there (Smzarzdidzja, Guzman) and have traded away valuable pieces for scraps (Nolasco for Pierre). They’re current roster is saddled with big money, long term, and no-trade clause deals. ANd while they have a huge payroll to work with…are the lone prospects of Jackson, Cashner, Vitters, and Castro really going to save this team from being the Astros in three years?
Are you aware the Cubs weren’t highly ranked?
That’s not really the point I was trying to make. I would’ve had at least the three teams directly below the Cubs (A’s, Reds, Tigers) ahead of the Cubs. They’re kind of stuck in the mud and, like I said, save for a few prospects, aren’t too far from becoming the Astros.
If you’ll recall, DC repeated said the teams in the 18-24ish range (and those might not be the exact numbers) were more or less an interchangeable clump.
Thank you Dave, this was very informative. I would like to again say that I like the idea that one commentator a while back suggested of giving teams a “score”, and this provides a framework. E.g. you now have 450/350/200, and can list the scores with each writeup. Again, great series, nice conclusion.
That was me! To reiterate, you would just assign them a number completely of your choosing, and the only purpose of the number would be to show where the teams are closely packed and where they are wide apart. Unlike Mr. K above, I wouldn’t even add them together to have anything to do with the overall grade, as (like OPS), you would essentially be adding numbers with different scales.
still doesn’t explain the seattle ranking.
so they’re front office scored a 450, and their current and farm had to be about as low as possible. and yet that was high enough for number 6.
As low as possible? They’ve got great defense and pitching, so I’d have to think that current-talent is closer to middle-of-the-pack. Future talent includes guys like King Felix, not *just* players down on the farm. While I do think #6 is too high, I think top-10 is feasible.
You don’t help your argument by making ridiculous statements. I agree that Seattle is too high, but you aren’t furthering that case.
I’m with Battletank. Run prevention doesn’t put runs on the board, I checked it on my Sharp solar calculator. It has big yellow buttons and picture of Jeffrey the Giraffe.
Not everybody plays in a bandbox. You have to design your team accordingly.
I agree that it starts at the top, but the GM’s job is to acquire talent, so if an organization has both current talent and future talent, doesn’t that say somethng positive about the guy who acquired that talent? As for new GM’s who might have inherited subpar talent, it takes more than one season to decide that the GM alone justifies ranking the organization in the top 10.
If you’re saying Jack Z only has one season to his credit, you are wrong. He didn’t appear out of thin air yesterday. He has two offseasons, one season, and years of successful scouting to his credit. He was a main cog in building the Brewers’ young talent core (Escobar, Braun, Fielder, Gallardo). Along with all the trades that he’s helped orchestrate (Putz, Silva, Balentien, Cliff Lee) and the FA acquisitions (Figgins), he’s hired some amazing people. Wakamatsu, Tango, Blengino.
For those crying small sample size! This is based on more than Z’s time at Seattle, and it’s based on the success of all the people that he’s hired before Seattle. Their careers didn’t start when they got a phone call from the Mariners.
But the rankings weren’t supposed to be based on past achievements, only possible future success.
A scouting resume doesn’t automatically translate to success as a GM. Let’s see Jack Z actually build, you know, a good team before we anoint him the next Billy Beane…..oh wait….nevermind!
That is a misinterpretation of what was said, Justin, and it sort of seems intentional. What was said is that a team’s past achievements aren’t necessarily an indication of future success, and that no team should be ranked based on how they’ve done in the past. It wasn’t said that Pujols for instance shouldn’t be a highly regarded player because all of his achievements are in the past, and we have no way of knowing if he’ll be as good in the future. The same could be said of Theo Epstein and Brian Cashman and Andrew Friedman as easily as it can be said for Tim Lincecum or Feliz Hernandez or Evan Longoria.
Projecting future success (which I’m not even sure was the point of the series) is difficult and subject to entropy. But yes, it is based on historical precedent and the best information available. There are problems with extrapolating it for a team (as opposed to an individual), and there are also problems with equating wins with strong performance because luck is a factor. But whatever you want to call the core stats or secondary stats for a GM, Z’s are strong. He doesn’t strike out a lot, he’s got some power, and he’s a plus defender.
Of course it doesn’t automatically translate, but it’s a high indicator. Just like good plate discipline is a high indicator in minor league play. Or a good K/BB ratio is a good indicator for a minor league pitcher. Nothing translates 100%, but the likelihood is higher. If you’re waiting for results to judge success, then you’re missing the point of the exercise. The point is to determine the health of an organization (as was in the title), not their future success but the likelihood of future success. Are they in a better position to succeed than the organizations behind them? And the answer for Seattle is yes. I can’t see them being ranked out of the top 10.
And of course Jack Z HAS built a good team. Or at least an above average team that will compete depending on the success of some high variance players. If we compare him to a player, then he has succeeded at each level that he has played at. I’m yet to see anything that indicates that he WON’T succeed. He’s clearly a five tool GM, and he’s using all of them.
Reuben,
Great reply. I can clearly see now that the judgment of an organization’s health is based on “indicators” instead of achievement. Therefore, I can now see the reason why teams, that have achieved success for sustained periods, ie. St. Louis, Atlanta, LAA and LAD are clearly behind Seattle in the health meter. I understand that there are indicators pointing to Seattle’s FO taking the organization in the right direction. My problem still lies in the fact that their heading in the right direction, is seen as healthier than teams that are already at the right destination, and have been for quite some time, while also making sure they stay at that particular destination. Its great to get excited when you see a FO taking an organization in the right direction, but we can’t let that overshadow those that have been doing that for a decade.
Reuban
The Mariners have a good team? Last year they were just 4 wins better than .500. So far this year, they look like they might have a mighty tough time scoring runs. Let’s see how this year turns out before we start calling them a good team and let’s see a few prospects successfully graduate to the MLB level before we call Jack Z the greatest GM alive.
Justin, thank you. I’d have to see each organization in turn to defend whether or not I personally believe that Seattle should be ranked over them. As for the four you listed, I would call Atlanta a toss-up, probably giving Atlanta a slight lead. St. Louis could have problems in the future due to so much money being tied up in Holliday and Pujols. They’re going to need a lot of young cost-controlled players to compliment that core as well as Duncan continuing to work his magic to keep pace with the Reds and Brewers in 2 years or less. Their farm looks pretty bad, and they’re a top heavy organization that hasn’t made many transactions lately that would pass my smell test.
The Dodgers, I don’t know what’s going to happen with them. It seems very hard to rank them until things are settled. They knew one of their major problems last year was pitching, but because of the divorce, they couldn’t go after Lee or Lackey or anyone else. Until that’s resolved, it’s really hard to see them moving forward. Though they should certainly be in the playoff hunt the next few years simply treading water.
The Angels are also in a bit of a transition but a different one. They’ve done well the past couple years, but in part because of how bad the AL West has been. Now that the west is getting better, we have to see how the Angels will respond. I would probably rate them higher than the Dodgers or Cardinals, maybe just around Seattle. I think they made the right moves in letting Figgins and Lackey walk while giving Kendrick and Wood the run they deserve to see if they can be the future. Their OF really could fall off a cliff at any moment, but their FO hasn’t done anything to make me think they can’t handle it.
DrB- I never called Jack Z the greatest GM of all time. He’s a very good GM at the top of an organization with money and that often translates to success. You keep saying that I or we should wait for results before saying anything, but then we’re not judging the health of something are we? When you go to the doctor, he doesn’t say, “If you haven’t died in ten years, you’re healthy.” He measures some things, runs some tests, and tries to determine whether or not you’re likely to die or get sick or get injured.
As has been said before and will be said again, a run prevented is the same as a run scored. 1-0 and 2-1 are still wins. They’re a good team because they have multiple 2-6 WAR players on their squad and because they have two guys who might be able to contribute heavily ready to be called up this season (Ackley and Saunders). They look like a good team right now to me. And I believe there are indicators that show that Jack Z and his minions will help make them better soon.
I don’t agree with that at all, saying the same guy is current and future talent doesn’t seem correct. I get it that he is young, but calling someone currently on the MLB team future talent smacks of fitting scores to a system to arrive at a predetermined outcome.
Future talent, if you read the series, talks about what the team is likely to look like in 2-4 years. So it includes players under contract for that term as well as prospects.
Thus Felix and Franklin Gutierrez, who both just signed extensions, are included both as part of the Current team as well as Future teams.
“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. ”
This is true. But no management could insulate well enough to survive what happened to the mets last year. I am surprised that they even had any warm bodies left to put on the field.
While Reyes, Santana, and Beltran being injured was out of the blue, can you say that definitively about the other players? I understand that no team could deal with the Mets level of injuries. They were unlucky, maybe historically unlucky. But were Delgado and Putz pictures of health coming into last season? What about Perez?
The damning thing isn’t so much the injuries themselves, but Omar’s response to them. Trading Church for Francoeur… Huh? You can’t predict that stuff, but you can REACT to it. You can try to acquire some new depth. It seemed like Omar covered his eyes and ears and just wished it better.
Gotta love Dave ripping management for letting go of Langerhans instead of Sweeney days after he ranked them the 6th best organization almost solely on the basis of their front office. I have a feeling that Mariners ranking may look as bad by this time next year as the Mets previous top 5 ranking looks right now.
Yea, its quite hilarious that they love a GM that has built a team with such flexibility and depth. And all for the sake of chemistry sets.
I’m inclined to agree with this reasoning, but with such a heavy weighting going to the front office, I’m curious as to what the metrics are for measuring the quality of the part of the organization. We’re all pretty familiar with the myriad ways baseball talent (current and future) can be measured and projected. What’s the basis for the difference between an A+ and a C- front office, if we’re separating it from the talent on the field?
I can think of a few ways, in terms of evaluating trade outcomes, drafts, free agent signings … but these are all inextricably tied to talent (current and future) on the field. A team with good players will be the proof of a good front office, no? The argument as to why the Mets don’t have a good front office is compelling — it is, in some ways, despite current talent — but when identifying the problems with the Mets, aren’t we looking at a paucity of depth of talent and future talent. In other words, doesn’t it all come back to players in the end?
Seems to me that trying to separate front office from player talent is like trying to separate pitching from defense — intuitively possible, but mathematically difficult. When both are good, it shows, and when both are bad, it’s the Royals, but how can you tell which is good and which is bad when only one aspect is to blame? We’re getting better at knowing when an excellent ground ball pitcher’s stats are being destroyed on paper by a lousy infield defense. How can we tell when a talented front office is being destroyed by lousy luck with players?
Unless you were looking at other aspects of team management, like maintaining affordable ticket prices, generating goodwill with the community, making the most of revenue sharing in terms of facility upgrades, negotiating the best media deals, etc. In that case, I do think those are often overlooked but extremely important aspects of any baseball franchise. I just don’t know about 45 percent.
Best response so far imo.
Good points, Dave. I don’t see a reason to bring up specific teams at this point – we’ve had those conversations enough in other threads, so focusing on the subject, I think some other posters make a couple of good points. You clearly factor in financial aspects of an organization in to the rankings, so that deserves some weight (maybe you include that in “management”, but I think it should be addressed seperately for clarity). I got the impression you factor in divisional peers, too, in terms of what it means for a teams competitive future, so that needs to be included in some form. I also think Icrywolf makes somse good points in how difficult evaluating a front office is and how it overlaps quite a bit with the “current/future talent” evaluations, but unfortunately, I don’t have any suggestions for dealing with that issue.
Also, one more note I forgot – it’s important to consider the timeframe aspects of how much management impacts a team’s success, too. The farther in the future you look, the more management’s ability to run the organization is going to impact their success, whereas the closer you get to the present, the more “current talent” matters. This shouldn’t lead to an equal weight on management for all teams – for a team that can contend for the next couple years, if you’re looking at a 5 year window of success, they’re going to be a pretty successful team regardless of management because they have such a nice amount of current talent now. Good management will make them more successful, but bad management won’t prevent them from being successful over that period. On the other hand, if you take a completely rebuilding team with a serious lack of current and future talent, management needs to be weighted much greater. The only way they’re going to see any success at all is with good management to completely rebuild the franchise.
The problem with this argument is that management can – and, for unsuccessful teams, is actually likely to – change, and is the only aspect of the three that can radically change quickly.
If the Mets trump the Mariners in short-term and long-term talent but their only real weakness is management, could they reclaim a spot at the top of the rankings just by firing Minaya and Manuel and replacing them with FG-approved management?
And if so, does it make any sense at all to give so much weight to current management, given that it’s so much easier to change than the other factors (and as @ICryWolf points out also so much harder to separate from the other factors)?
I also note that there isn’t a single mention of external factors (division size and competitiveness, market size, etc.) in Dave’s breakdown, but that features prominently in the actual evaluation of organizations – much of Seattle’s ranking seems to derive not from player or managerial talent but from external factors like the lack of any other dominant team in the AL West.
Personally, I think these are outside the scope of evaluating an “organization,” but if they are part of the pictures, where do they fit in the breakdown? Or are they just fudge factors?
Wait, ownership and management is at the top? So now I have to go back to the Tigers page and leave a bunch of unhappy comments? How are Messrs. Illitch and Dombrowski not enough to crack the top half of the league?
I’m sorry. This’ll come off as being a homer, but Atlanta’s current team is better than Seattle’s, their farm system is better, and while Seattle’s front office gets a lot of press, the Braves’ got Jair Jurrjens, Omar Infante, and Nate McLouth for practically nothing. Also, outside of arguably Lowe (and I don’t think his contract is that terrible for what he provides), they don’t have a bad contract on the books.
I’ve followed these rankings, but until I see something to the contrary, the Seattle pick seems pretty biased in this light. I’m definitely willing to admit if I’ve missed something, but at best it seems like (at least in this case) the rankings were anchored down by something that isn’t really quantifiable, and that seems an pretty big outlier from what is normally posted on this site.