Hey, At Least We're Not the Astros: Fangraphs Ranks Royals as the 29th Best Organization in Baseball; or Et Tu, devil_fingers?
by Gopherballs on Mar 15, 2010 4:37 PM EDT
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PrintFangraphs is again counting down its rankings of each organization in baseball. Despite a recent binge of hiring Royals bloggers to counter a perceived bias against all things Royals, Fangraphs still dropped the Royals' ranking from 27th last year to 29th this year. An explanation of the rankings criteria is here, with the criteria further clarified as the organization's changes of winning now and going forward based on current talent, future talent, management skill, financial flexibility, and quality of ownership and ballpark (one and a half out of six is not bad, right?). Unlike last year, there are separate posts on the team's current talent (some guy named Matt Klaasen mutes his love of the Rick Ankiel signing), future talent, and overall health of the organization.
Not surprisingly, Dave Cameron is brutal as usual when it comes to the overall health of the Royals, which he dubs "the anti-FanGraphs team." And he is probably right:
The management is bad enough to offset almost all of the good. Zack Greinke, Billy Butler, David DeJesus – there are pieces here that should be the core of a good young team. But they’ve been surrounded by chaff, and expensive chaff at that. There are some good young players on the way, but not enough. By the time those guys get to KC – if they get there before Moore trades them for something else without value – Greinke’s contract will be expiring, Butler will be expensive, and they’ll be faced with another necessary rebuilding process, because there isn’t enough talent in the organization to contend either now or in the future.
He concludes that while the process might have worked in the 1980s, it just does not work anymore.
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as I tried to write in a comment that I botched pretty badly
the royals face a number of problems
we’d really be better off if we could build a time machine back to the mid-90s
I actually made a time machine joke in a comment I made on the "overall health of the organization" post
My suggestion was that Glass used a time machine to find Dayton.
I had a discussion at a bar the other night with some Mets fans about where the Royals would be if they had a Mets-level payroll. The boring, obvious conclusion was that we’d basically be right where the Mets are.
Can you imagine the hilarious signings Dayton would make with unlimited payroll flexibility though? That would be an absolute circus. Or we might just have the same players but we’d be paying them more. Think Kendall at 6 mill per year.
Guillen would have been signed to a much longer deal thats for sure.
same goes for Farnsworth, and Ponson
Sometimes the best way to convince someone he is wrong is to let him have his way. --- Red O'Donnell
by averagegatsby on Mar 15, 2010 5:23 PM EDT up reply actions
but would he be more willing to cut dead weight?
not as much need to “see if JoGui rounds back into form” if his salary is relatively smaller compared to the overall payroll
Zapp Brannigan/Dayton Moore quote of the day: "[my most important sabermetric stats are] runs scored and runs driven in"
by SagehenMacGyver47 on Mar 15, 2010 6:18 PM EDT up reply actions
It's fair
Sounds approximately accurate, but it is possible that the minor league talent was undervalued in the organizational ranking.
Major league talent: #28
Minor league talent: #12
Front office: #29
I can’t defend each of those numbers but I think they are all close. Does that add up to the 29th best org in baseball? Possibly. Depends on how much weight the Royals good minor league system gets. Does a minor league system in the top quartile offset poor major league talent and a poor front office enough to put them higher than second to last? Maybe. But not by much.
The immoderate moderator
The other factors are financial flexibility, owner, and ballpark (which obviously overlap a bit)
The new Forbes article is not out yet, but the Royals were second to last in revenue last year (and a good $30-40 million behind the middle of the pack). The Glass family is never going to rate high on any rankings of ownership groups. The new K helped, but it still did not have the same effect on attendance that completely brand new ballparks have had in the past.
And as noted in the future talent article, even with the minor league talent, there is an open question about the organization’s ability to develop it.
So important factors in the rankings include things they don't even discuss in the any of the three articles on the team?
I’m sure you are correct that those factors contributed to the Royals #29 overall ranking, but if that’s the case, shouldn’t the revenue situation, Glass and Kauffman Stadium have been mentioned? I mean if a team is getting a certain ranking because of A, B, C, D, E and F, shouldn’t they talk about more than just A, B, and C?
The immoderate moderator
by Scott McKinney on Mar 15, 2010 5:06 PM EDT up reply actions
Read the link on the criteria, especially the comments
Last year’s article went over the ownership and financial issues and nothing has really changed since then, so given the word count limit, it is not too surprising he skipped rehashing those points again.
I saw the criteria
But then I would have thought that Cameron would discuss how each team stands with regard to those criteria. That was a short article, so I think he was well under the word count limit. He certainly had room for a paragraph on revenue, market, owner, stadium. He didn’t need to go into these things in depth. But I think Cameron just kind of ran through this article, hitting the high (low) points. Basically, he (correctly) thinks the organization sucks, so he laid that out in a cursory fashion. That’s not a major criticism. I don’t know that the Royals organization deserves much more than that.
The immoderate moderator
by Scott McKinney on Mar 15, 2010 5:19 PM EDT up reply actions
i'm with you
I think Fangraphs would agree that the Willie Bloomquists of the world are just as important/interesting to discuss as the Albert Pujolses. Same holds for organizations.
Zapp Brannigan/Dayton Moore quote of the day: "[my most important sabermetric stats are] runs scored and runs driven in"
by SagehenMacGyver47 on Mar 15, 2010 6:22 PM EDT up reply actions
On the other hand,
It can’t be all that much fun to beat a dead horse over and over…
Murphy was an optimist.
by The Ol' Perfesser on Mar 15, 2010 10:05 PM EDT up reply actions
or can it?
Sometimes the best way to convince someone he is wrong is to let him have his way. --- Red O'Donnell
by averagegatsby on Mar 15, 2010 10:07 PM EDT up reply actions
See,
that just doesn’t look like fun to me. But I’m old and cranky.
Murphy was an optimist.
by The Ol' Perfesser on Mar 15, 2010 10:09 PM EDT up reply actions
Doing that once a week could do wonders for a lot of people's mental health.
Glad I came, just wish I hadn't stayed so long.
People ask me what I do in winter when there’s no baseball. I’ll tell you what I do. I stare out the window and wait for spring.
But Hard On
The joints.
I used to be an A's fan until they left town and got good.
by philofthenorth on Mar 16, 2010 2:34 AM EDT up reply actions
did they rank them 12th?
I think the problem with the system, with regards to 2010, is that it won’t have any impact on the big league club anytime soon, whereas dayton’s bad ideas will, and will keep doing so
All of my ranking numbers were estimates
I don’t remember Fangraph’s minor league organizational rank (if they had one). And I don’t know where exactly they rank the Royals major league talent or their front office. That 12 ranking is an average of BA, BP and Law.
The immoderate moderator
by Scott McKinney on Mar 15, 2010 5:20 PM EDT up reply actions
That title really made me laugh.
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Last year I thought Cameron was crazy for the 27th ranking especially going into the season
but he has been proven right. GMDM keeps making mistakes and I dread seeing some of the trades that could be coming down the pipe when KC might actually have some commodities at the upper levels.
I don't know how to put this but I'm kind of a big deal.
by kcscoliny on Mar 15, 2010 5:06 PM EDT reply actions 1 recs
Is there any reason for Houston being this bad (other than bad management)?
Isn’t Houston like the 3rd or 4th biggest market in the country, and they were in a world series not that long ago, I just don’t get how they are this bad.
Sometimes the best way to convince someone he is wrong is to let him have his way. --- Red O'Donnell
houston kinda got trapped in a way
they had a bad system, and probably knew that at some level
they also had an old team, but some elite talent, and hey, we’re in the NL here, the NL Central even
going for it, to the extent they did in 2006-9 probably wasn’t a terrible idea, but it was always going to be a deal with the devil, and now they’re about to enter hell
So should they have dumbed Berkman in some sort of mega deal?
And why couldn’t they have made a run at a player like Tiexeira or Holliday? Which leads me to believe that they will go after maybe Crawford next year? With their resources the only reason for that team to be that bad is because of bad management though… Yeah they made a run but they are definitely going in the wrong direction right? They have a crappy roster with zero minor league talent.
Sometimes the best way to convince someone he is wrong is to let him have his way. --- Red O'Donnell
by averagegatsby on Mar 15, 2010 5:27 PM EDT up reply actions
they made a big signing with Carlos Lee
they probably could have done better there, not that they know that
Berkman has a full no-trade clause I believe, so that’s out. I don’t know the org closely enough to say what they should have done, but obviously, it didn’t work
Im sure they could have gone to Berkman and say the Ship is sinking...
Who would you be interested in playing for
Sometimes the best way to convince someone he is wrong is to let him have his way. --- Red O'Donnell
by averagegatsby on Mar 15, 2010 5:59 PM EDT up reply actions
I think last year's list showed that their organizational rankings are really only about two things
1. Talent (major league and minor league)
2. Process
If a team has talent throughout the organization and it’s front office “does things the right way,” then they are going to get a good ranking, regardless of revenue, market size, owner, stadium, etc. One example: 2009 #2 organization — Tampa Bay. They have talent and a good process. Their market, revenue and stadium suck. But in the final analysis, those things were irrelevant. The current majority mindset is that market size and revenue really aren’t that important because a good process is the great leveler. Of course that ignores the limited success that small market sabermetric organizations have had and the fact that in the current environment, the large market teams often have a good process too, thus negating the “leveller.”
The immoderate moderator
The Mets were No. 5 last year based on their revenue strength
Oakland did not make Top 10 due its revenue and ballpark problems. The only reason Tampa was No. 2 was because it had straight As in the other categories (including an A+). Houston was the only relatively big market team in the bottom third, and it took a meddling owner, a bad front office, a lack of major league talent, and the worst farm system in baseball to achieve that. Reading through the other teams, the finances/ownership/ballpark issues clearly had an impact on the rankings.
Last year at least they addressed each section and gave a letter grade for each
Under “Ownership” they would usually discuss revenue and/or stadium, as well as the owner. So you knew where the ranking was coming from. This year I guess we’re on our own to fill in the blanks (and project our own opinions into the void).
The immoderate moderator
by Scott McKinney on Mar 15, 2010 6:00 PM EDT up reply actions
Or again, you can read the same author's comments on ownership and revenue from last year,
consider nothing has changed in either regard, and apply that reasoning forward.
has anyone noticed if there's a summary page for last year's rankings
i got to the “final list” page,
http://www.fangraphs.com/blogs/index.php/organizational-rankings-1
but i don’t see a way to find the five rankings for every team other than to go team-by-team
Zapp Brannigan/Dayton Moore quote of the day: "[my most important sabermetric stats are] runs scored and runs driven in"
by SagehenMacGyver47 on Mar 15, 2010 6:35 PM EDT up reply actions
Cataloged the '09 version
excel file via google docs:
https://docs.google.com/fileview?id=0Bx1FMJCym52ZNzQwODQ3NjAtYWFkMS00MjgxLTkyYWItOWZjNmJjOTVjM2M1&hl=en
edit-able google spreadsheet:
https://spreadsheets.google.com/ccc?key=0Ah1FMJCym52ZdE0zdzFFZXJsN1R4QU53WF9NTmtFUVE&hl=en
“Ownership” ratings for Cubs, Padres, and Nationals inferred from description b/c I needed a value to run a regression. Also, note that the “average” is just my way of evaluating their analysis; this quote from Fangraphs qualifies how their rating system should be viewed:
The overall grade at the end of each piece is not an average of the four subsection grades. These problems compound on top of each other in a multiplicative effect. When you multiply decimals, the product is smaller than the average of the parts. Same thing here.
The results of the regression show that (if you assume the constant is zero) Ownership, FO, and ML Talent each impact the Overall rating by 30%, while MiL Talent has only a 10% impact.
Zapp Brannigan/Dayton Moore quote of the day: "[my most important sabermetric stats are] runs scored and runs driven in"
by SagehenMacGyver47 on Mar 15, 2010 8:01 PM EDT up reply actions
my other issues
(I suppose I could address Fangraphs directly, but then you guys might not get to hear me rant.)
1. I question whether letter grades are the correct method. They’re subject to our personal interpretation of them while numbers (i.e. 1-12 are not) (speaking of which, strangely no teams got an Overall B+). Not only that, but is a 0-lowest, 12-highest the correct mathematical structure to use?
2. It appears (from their quote and their data) that they have a fairly complicated model of assessing the “overall” value of a team. This is a hugely complicated subject, and the model is not available to see. Not that they couldn’t have developed a good model, but that is the kind of thing that is very uncertain, even with a high degree of economic and mathematical precision. I would prefer that they start with a very simple model with understood limitations: something of a rubric on which the general public could evaluate the teams.
3. Whatever the model and rating system they choose (or maybe because of it), there are some hard-to-believe results in terms of the 4 component ratings Ownership/FO/ML Talent/MiL Talent as compared to the Overall rating. A few:
a. #21 St. Louis vs. #20 Toronto: St. Louis is equal or higher than Toronto in every component, yet below them on the list.
b. #29 Florida vs. #27 K.C.: Florida dominates K.C. in every category B-/B-/B+ vs D/C/C except Ownership, which is F vs. D (7/7/9 vs 2/5/5 & 0 vs 2). Seems odd and best and sloppy/incorrect at worst.
c. #14 Philly vs #5 N.Y. Mets: Philly was 11/5/9/7 vs Mets 10/5/10/7. Maybe the 1-point that N.Y. is better than Philly in MiL Talent is more important than Philly’s 1-point lead in Ownership, but is it 9 places of ranking important? Very hard to believe. But, maybe my questions will be answered by this year’s set of analyses.
Also, I’ve noticed that I made at least one typo in my spreadsheet (switching NY an Cleveland), and I wouldn’t be completely surprised to learn that a few letter grades were incorrectly transcribed. Considering what my numbers were describing, maybe a typo or two is apt.
Zapp Brannigan/Dayton Moore quote of the day: "[my most important sabermetric stats are] runs scored and runs driven in"
by SagehenMacGyver47 on Mar 15, 2010 8:30 PM EDT up reply actions
I guess one could do that, but it would still be lazy writing and incomplete analysis
I’m really not bashing Cameron or Fangraphs much here. The overall analysis is right on. Their number might be just right, or off by one or two. But it is pretty lazy to leave elements out of the article which are supposed to be integral elements of their ranking criteria. It shouldn’t be incumbent on the reader to look back to the analysis from 12 months ago and assume that anything not covered hasn’t changed and thus should be applied to the current analysis. Just because Fangraphs is a great site and Cameron is an excellent sabermetrician, I’m not going to bend over backwards to justify the holes in this article. Both Fangraphs and Cameron can do things less than perfect every now and then. It’s ok to recognize that.
The immoderate moderator
by Scott McKinney on Mar 15, 2010 7:01 PM EDT up reply actions
But we're supposed to question everything
I know you were joking, and I kind of am too, but not really.
The immoderate moderator
by Scott McKinney on Mar 15, 2010 7:07 PM EDT up reply actions
The format is different this year
to get more opinions and take some of the workload off of Dave. Different gave various forms of input into 1) leadership/f.o./ownership issues, 2) present talent, and 3) future talent . I’m not sure how Dave has taken that stuff into accuont into the rankings. Then different people are writing the “present talent” sections for each team, and Bryan Smith is writing the “future talent” section for each team. So the individual grading would be more difficult to do, although it’s implicit in Dave’s summary posts.
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by Matt Klaassen on Mar 15, 2010 6:33 PM EDT up reply actions
that reminds me of a greatexchange that happened in a debate round once
Dude 1: “Call me stupid, but whats your value?”
Dude 2: “its implicit, Stupid”
Who is writing the part about the Royals revenue, market, ownership and stadium?
A different format from last year is fine. Dividing it up into three articles makes sense. One deals with future talent, one deals with current talent and then there is a final article which I guess sums it up. The problem I have with the Royals section is that it doesn’t include some elements set out in his criteria article. If he’s going to to specifically lay out the criteria, shouldn’t he (or someone) address those criteria in one of the team’s articles? Oh well, this is no big deal. It just seems that the Royals summation article was given short shrift.
The immoderate moderator
by Scott McKinney on Mar 15, 2010 7:06 PM EDT up reply actions
it is laid out pretty confusingly
especially since when you first hit the site, you see like 3 different articles that all are about the royals, just one after another
And if you're writing three articles on the quality of an organization
…is there any excuse for not including things that are supposed to be part of the ranking criteria? Seems like they had enough words to fit in all of the criteria elements. Seems like it was divided up so that Cameron would have covered the non-talent elements, but he just quick-and-dirtied it.
The immoderate moderator
by Scott McKinney on Mar 15, 2010 7:27 PM EDT up reply actions
Personally, I think this fact is telling:
Royals 29th
Astros 30th
Glass and McClaine are seemingly best friends.
Would anybody be surprised if Glass got some of his “ideas” over the years from McClaine, and vice-versa?
I know I wouldn’t be.
Mr Glass, this is a pro sports team, not a retail store - run it like one!
McLane is apparently
looking to sell. Here’s to hoping that Glass copies that one, too.
"Now…put that in your [BLEEP]ing pipe and smoke it." -Hal McRae
"I was doing this when BJ was in his father's nutsack." -Renzo Gracie
by Sweep_the_Leg on Mar 15, 2010 7:14 PM EDT up reply actions
Sometimes The Devil
You know………..
I used to be an A's fan until they left town and got good.
by philofthenorth on Mar 15, 2010 8:15 PM EDT up reply actions
I think Glass has poisoned Mclane's brain
for several years it seemed like the Astros were really doing things the right way- and Mclane owned the team. In the last 5 years it has gone from a respected organization to the team keeping us from the cellar.
Is it safe?
I find it funny
That there is this huge schism in the Royals online following. Most people on here shrug their shoulders at this and agree with it. Over on RC, the sky is falling and Fangraphs are complete idiots who don’t know a thing.
Anyway, the only thing I disagree with (and its probably been mentioned already) is the international signing thing. I don’t really think that is a valid criticism anymore.
That's why I value the intelligent discussions at Royals Corner so highly.
The immoderate moderator
by Scott McKinney on Mar 15, 2010 9:12 PM EDT up reply actions
Go to the Yahoo message boards for the unvarnished truth about the Royals
I used to be an A's fan until they left town and got good.
by philofthenorth on Mar 16, 2010 2:37 AM EDT up reply actions
That’s probably the worst of all.
The immoderate moderator
by Scott McKinney on Mar 17, 2010 6:14 PM EDT up reply actions
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