2011 Organizational Rankings: #11 – San Francisco
I know, I know, they just won the World Series, how could they rate behind ten other organizations? Remember, though, that this is a forward looking exercise, and we’re not doling out credit for what happened in the past. The question posed was how well do the Giants stack up going forward.
Present Talent – 82.27 (10th)
Future Talent – 75.00 (t-20th)
Financial Resources – 83.18 (10th)
Baseball Operations – 77.73 (19th)
Overall Rating – 80.32 (11th)
The fact that the Giants will be handing out World Series rings on Opening Day is the big elephant in the room here, so let’s just get that out of the way. The Giants played well in October, and certainly deserved to win the World Series. You could even argue that they were the best team in baseball last year – they did, after all, have the highest team WAR in baseball, so perhaps they never should have been considered underdogs to begin with. But we can’t overlook the fact that they didn’t seal up a playoff spot until the final day of the regular season. Had things gone a little bit differently on that last day, the Giants may not have even made the playoffs, much less won the whole thing. We have to be careful not to ascribe too much emphasis to October performance. The Giants deserve a lot of credit for how they performed in the playoffs, but when it comes to future production, those three weeks are just a small sliver of the information that we need to account for.
Rating the team 10th in present talent isn’t meant to be an insult, though I’d imagine a few Giants fans will take it as such. If we could expect Andres Torres and Aubrey Huff to be MVP candidates every year, they’d certainly rank higher, but there’s legitimate skepticism about how much of their 2010 performance they can carry over into the future, and they were the Giants best position players by a huge margin last year. It’s also unlikely that the Giants continue to get 33 starts apiece from each member of their rotation. The Giants had a lot of things go right last year, and when we’re forecasting the future, we can’t project those same kinds of fortunate outcomes on a year to year basis.
The Giants placement is most affected by questions about how well the Giants will be able to respond to less rosy outcomes going forward. The baseball operations department graded out in the lower half of the league, in large part due to a history of questionable acquisitions that cast some doubt on how the front office evaluates talent. The contracts handed out to the likes of Barry Zito and Aaron Rowand continue to be problematic, and it took monster seasons from low-cost flyers like Torres and Huff to compensate for the lack of production the team was getting from the high-end-salary players on the roster. Can they continue to hit home runs on these guys who are mostly ignored by the rest of the league? If not, than the front office will have to be far more judicious in who they give long term contracts to in the future.
The Giants have the money to be competitive long term, but there are legitimate concerns about whether those financial resources will be spent efficiently. Given that the farm system is Brandon Belt and then a lot of hopes and prayers, the Giants aren’t going to be able to continue to rely on cost-controlled young talent to come in and keep the team competitive while overpriced veterans soak up large chunks of the payroll. The escalating salaries of Tim Lincecum and Matt Cain will also erode a pretty significant part of the value found on the roster, and the team is going to find it challenging to keep their stars in place while also filling the holes on the roster with competent veterans if they keep overpaying for mediocre free agents.
This team can be a perennial contender if the front office identifies the right players to throw money at, and, more importantly, begin to avoid the wrong players. There is a good base of talent to build around, and if they can keep the young arms healthy, they won’t be bad any time soon. To be in the mix in October every year, though, they’ll need a better plan than getting monster years from the likes of Huff and Torres. This organization has some strength, but they also have some deficiencies that lead to questions about what the 2012 and beyond rosters might look like. If the organization learns from their mistakes and identifies better ways to spend the resources they have, the Giants could be good for quite some time. But another big misstep in free agency could leave them with too many holes to fill and not enough money to go around.
Idiot. McGowan was resposibnle for the Zito contract and that’s why he is no longer around. Lets use one stat, team WAR, and then disregard it and write an article totally on gut feeling.
Why does it matter who negotiated/approved the contracts? They still count as part of the Giants’ payroll and therefore restricts the financial flexibility of the organization through 2012 and 2013, respectively. Cameron is right in the fact that the Giants need to rely on monster amounts of value from the pitching staff, Posey, Belt, and pray that some decent free agent signings or minor league talent to fill in holes. This is pretty much what Giants fans are saying over on Giants’ blogs.
It matter because he is using the argument that they have been poor at free agent acquistion in the past as his chief reason the front office could deter future results. In essence, they made bad contracts under Magowan but haven’t made them under Nuekum, but Cameron is still using Magowan’s free agent philosophy as evidence. There have been no contracts that hamper a team for an extended time under Nuekum.
It doesnt matter in this article who the individual was who negotiated those bad contracts. The organization is ultimately accountable.
I think it’s still legitimate to point out that there is no long term blockbuster deal that the Giants have made thats been successful since Bonds. Thats almost twenty years ago. Blockbusters aside, the Giants haven’t picked any pockets with the 2nd or 3rd tier free agents either, nor have they slightly overpaid for solid value. That leaves the cheap-o low risk high upside fliers, which this article points out were a driver behind 2010′s success for the Giants.
The bottom line is that the Giants need to fork over some cash to quality bats this coming off season, even if it means over paying a little. Refusing to pay for top talent, and then sitting back and signing low value guys like Renteria, Huff, Burrell, Ross, will not lead to success year after year. I completely agree.
One note is that the Giants threw gobs of money at Carlos Lee and Alphonso Soriano, both of whom didnt want to play in SF.
Read the beginning of the article….this is about the Giants going forwards. Last year’s WAR matters very little to these proceedings.
Really stuck your keyboard in your mouth there.
Present Talent – 82.27 (10th)
Future Talent – 75.00 (t-20th)
Financial Resources – 83.18 (10th)
Baseball Operations – 77.73 (19th)
Overall Rating – 80.32 (11th)
Rated 11th overall with input scores of 10th, t-20th, 10th and 19th. Seems like that would be difficult to do. They must have narrowly edged out a bunch of teams.
I have them ranked as the 9th best organization, so I have no problem with the 11 ranking. The Giants are definitely on an uptick in terms of recent and expected future success (winning games). The team is the 7th most valuable according to Forbes. Their minor league system is a little below average but mostly because they have graduated (or will shortly in Belt’s case) some top notch prospects of late. The Giants have done a wonderful job of bouncing back from the albatross contracts of Zito and Rowand. It just took some time.
Present Talent and Financial Resources are the two biggest weights, I believe.
Why is this a “forward looking exercise?” Org rankings should be based on everything an organization has done. The past is actually quantifiable too. Obviously you must look at the future. But I feel like too much weight is being put on what could happen…
Well, to be fair, there is no defined criteria at all that they are using to define organizational success, so you can’t really say they’re wrong!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
i agree, looking forward in the crystal ball would make the gnats look even more ridiculous.
If you want to take the past successes into account, how much of it would you attribute to the current strength of the organization and the future success? Do you want them to count that the Giants had the best hitter in the universe on their team once or would that be silly because Bonds isn’t there anymore?
The present talent is based on what the present talent will do from here on out, not on what they did. I know a lot of people like looking at a previous year’s results and saying “okay, they won a world series, now they’re adding X ballplayer, so everything about the 2010 team will remain the same plus the addition of the new hitter! Thus, the 2011 team will not only win the World Series but cure cancer!”. This is how a lot of fans think.
The very recent past performances of players are talent into account with the ‘Present Talent” part of this. How much more past success do you want to be loaded into current health and future success?
You actually have results from the past. Bringing up Bonds in this scenario is obviously not what I really meant. The last 3-5 years for each organization should probably play into an “organizational ranking” a little more. Bonds has been non-existent the past 3…But this is just my opinion.
Joe -
So in the last 3-5 years the team signed Zito and Rowland.
Since 2006 the team has won 76, 71, 72, 88, and 92 games. If you want to take the 5 year average, that’s 79.8 wins per season. If you look at just the last four they’re just shy of 81 wins per year.
I don’t think this is working out like you intended.
If we were ranking how teams have done over the last 3-5 years, you’re right….but the point of this ranking is to rank the teams for the future. So, to answer your question, “Why is this a forward-looking exercise?”…because that’s what the people doing it are attempting to rank. Simple really.
CMC, Except for the fact that I never once said that I disagreed with this Giants ranking. My response was to Cameron saying “This is a forward thinking exercise.” That was what I originally commented on.
And Eric, that is fine, I suppose. I just think an organizational ranking should include what an organization does, past and present. But that is just my preference I guess.
CMC,
Let’s see, 71, 72, 88, 92? That looks like there’s more than an average of 79 wins going on there, don’t you think?
DRB:
Did you miss the part where he said: “If you look at just the last four they’re just shy of 81 wins per year”?
odd that the SF future talent is so much worse than the Angels. If future talent means…talent for the future (i.e. not minor league system), I’d take the young Giants (Madison, Belt, Posey) over the young Angels (Trout) any day of the week.
Good point. If this is truly not a “minor league talent” rating, as we have been led to believe, then the core of Belt, Posey, Sandoval, and all those pitchers should vault SF into the top tier in terms of “future talent”.
Maybe present talent is ranked higher when considering the current talent on the roster and how long they will be around.
I was under the impression future talent = minor league talent, and Posey/Bumgarner would fall under current talent.
didn’t dave say previously that future talent includes young cost-controlled players on the major league roster? If so then posey and bumgarner should count, and the 20th ranking seems low.
dave, could you clarify here?
I would guess that they’re counting Posey and Bumgarner as part of the current talent. Looks like Belt is going to break camp with the team, so that will thin out the minor league prospects even more.
That basically leaves a bunch of question marks vs. Trout. So now it works fine.
However, if you’re counting young talent all around, the Angels also have Bourjos on the team with Trumbo appearing to be the first baseman starting (with Morales hurt) and Walden in the bullpen. The young talent seems about even to me. But that still leaves Trout and Conger in the minors, which probably trumps just Belt.
I really don’t think Trumbo, Bourjos, and Walden are equivalent to Posey, Bumgarner, and Sandoval. Trout > Belt, at least at this point — but it’s closer than I would’ve expected. Add to that the fact that virtually every pitcher on the Giants is underpaid (with most still in arbitration years), and I’d gladly take the Giants over the Angels for the next couple years, ceteris paribus.
I find this whole ranking system somewhat half-baked, though. This arbitrary and little-understood distinction between present and future talent is a problem, and I also wonder if it’s possible to ran a team’s expected success without quantifying and factoring in the strength of their most frequent opponents.
The error in the methodology that says future talent = minor leaguers is really proving to be the fatal flaw of this ranking system. Lumping all players currently on the roster into “present talent” equalizes players regardless of if they are 1 year away from free agency or have many years of cost controlled value remaining.
In the Giants case (as has been much discussed below) this methodology obscures their true chances for future success. Posey, Belt, Sandoval, Lincecum, Cain, Bumgarner, Wilson, et al form a young core that I suspect many of the top 10 teams will envy.
On a related note – I think the baseball ops staff of SF should be ranked significantly higher. A lot of emphasis is being placed on 1 method of acquiring talent (free agency – probably becuase that is better understood) but little focus paid to scouting and the draft. Not many teams have had the Giants recent run of success in the draft. Drafting a position player in the 5th round and turning him into a ROY candidate after 1 professional season is every bit as remarkable as Aaron Rowand’s contract was ill considered.
Agree with Joe. Although I do think the ranking is about right and i acknowledge the fact that these all have different authors, how can past success be stressed so much in the Angels’ assessment yet discounted here?
Because the Angels have had way more past success than the Giants.
Angels made playoffs from 2004-2009. Giants made it once, last year. Just because they happened to win it all last year doesn’t change that they averaged like 75 wins a year the 5 years before that.
If you wanted to include past success, the Giants would probably fare worse, not better.
In this case the past success is being used as more an evidence of weirdness than anything else. The Angels success defied expectation. As one commenter pointed out, maybe this should get them more props (if on field management counts in baseball operations, which I do not believe it does).
So, 6 of the top 10 are in the AL and 4 of those are in the AL East.
does that seem wrong to you? seems about right to me.
No, not wrong. It’s a fact that the AL East has the two biggest spending teams and both are well run. Those two pull the other teams in the division up with them (a rising tide floats all boats, but two of the boats are bigger than the others).
Seems wrong to me. Only two of those teams can ever make the playoffs. If you define success as winning championships then the kinda hard to do it in a division with Yanks/Sox/Rays.
See what I did there….
With its unwillingness to spend on its own talented players and its inability to fill a stadium to see a competitive team, I have no idea how Tampa ranks in the top 10.
Well, that shouldn’t really be a shocker.
But this is a shocker:
http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_q5YJq-A9L68/TOteNmzNzUI/AAAAAAAAGHo/Kk8PBrzvEk4/s1600/shocker-2.jpg
I said in Seattles ranking that Orioles would be #15, Jays #8, Rays #6, BoSox and Yanks #1&2
You are Nostradamus.
I once dreamed my Uncle Frank called me on the phone. Then he did.
You are very, very good at predicting meaningless rankings.
I would go as far as to guess that 6 of the top 8 are in the AL, along with Atlanta and Philadelphia.
As far as the front office goes, they’ve obviously doled out some ridiculously bad free agent contracts but their drafting and to an extent player development have been very good.
“Rating the team 10th in present talent isn’t meant to be an insult,”
“they did, after all, have the highest team WAR in baseball,”
I get that they had career years from Huff and Torres but what team doesn’t have at least one or two players having career years? And then you knock them for having pitchers who don’t get hurt? I guess it’s better to have a staff full of Erik Bedards because they’ll eventually regress to a normal level of injury and provide production?
Yea, every team has a 32 year old 6 WAR centerfielder materialize from literally nowhere. That not a career year, that’s a once a decade (or more) occurrence.
And Dave is right to question Torres’ future value.
The point is that you can’t count on pitchers not getting hurt or on getting multiple >5-WAR seasons from stopgap players. Go look at other teams’ WAR totals. You can see very quickly how rare it is to get those sort of career years from non-premier players.
You don’t give poker players credit for hitting an inside straight in a previous hand, because that doesn’t alter the odds that he’ll hit another one in this hand one bit. You don’t give a GM credit for getting lucky on breakouts and/or pitcher health in the past for the same reason.
But you do give credit to a poker player who calculates the odds of hitting an inside straight and betting accordingly. The Giants bid accordingly on a bunch of bets, and some of them hit.
Well, at some point you probably do need to give the Giants credit for the pitching durability they’ve maintained during Righetti’s tenure. They kept Jason Schmidt on the mound, for God’s sake. Off the top of my head, Lincecum’s missed — one start in his career? Two? Cain hasn’t missed any that I can recall. Zito hasn’t missed any due to injury. Sanchez has been pretty durable.
It’s possible that the other shoe will drop after all those extra innings last year. Actually, a bright orange cleat seems poised to fall as we speak. But Groeschner and Righetti have to at least be close to crossing a frontier where their success has to be considered more than just pure luck — just as Dave Cameron also realized the Giants’ HR/FB rates were too bizarre not to at least investigate.
I know every system has a flaw and I am not coming from the most credible stance (because I am a Giants fan), but I am quite surprised FanGraphs has put them this high. I feel like the statistics community is breaking windows, flipping cars, and starting city riots just because Brian Sabean is a GM. Lol.
Anyway, I would just like to say Future Talent can’t be based solely on Minor Leaguers. Matt Cain, Tim Lincecum, Jonathan Sanchez, Madison Bumgarner, Buster Posey, Brian Wilson, Sergio Romo, and Dan Runzler have not reached their prime. I absolutely think all the players I listed should be factored into future talent because we all know they’ll be making an impact for years to come and none of them are going to be gone within the next 2 years, at least. Even if they won’t all be on the team in 5 years, I’d like to say we’d get some talent in return.
No?
Those players are accounted for in the present talent. I think you’re right however that some info could be lost by not taking age/potential into the present talent evaluation.
They definitely take not only age/potential but also length of club-control into the present talent evaluation. C’mon, give the guys at FG a little credit.
Matt Cain, Tim Lincecum, and Brian Wilson have absolutely reached their prime. They shouldn’t fall off anytime soon, but it is really, really unlikely they will greatly improve.
Cain could improve a little imo especially in the “dumb” stats like W-L and ERA as he’s been a little unlucky so far regards run support and Sanchez has great stuff and more room to improve. Bumgarner only 21 y.o., Runzler great stuff not realized yet, Romo may be a closer in the making(watch). and Wheeler down on the farm.
I would like to take back what I said. I think FanGraphs gets it right here. Future talent is pretty bad. Aside from Belt, optimism for our farm system is just stupid. I think our team should be ranked above Colorado, Toronto, Tampa Bay. Of course, this is all arguable. FanGraphs, I love you. Don’t leave me.
Hmmm….Apparently Dave’s still upset that Aubrey Huff peed in his Cheerio’s, either that or PTB had a run-in with a close female friend and/or relative because this is ridiculous. The Giants have 4 starting pitchers that are under the age of the 30. One of them has 2 Cy Youngs in 3 full seasons, one didn’t allow a single run in the postseason (Matt xFIP Cain), one had the lowest BAA last year (Sanchez) and the other pitched lights out down the stretch in his rookie year (MadBum). Even if they had Seattle’s lineup, they would rank around 11th, given that they have Posey and Belt I just don’t see how anyone could rank their future outlook this low. But then again, this is from a guy who thinks Cincy is one of the best teams in the NL.
Cincy isn’t one of the best teams in the NL? SF has great pitching, but their position players are kind of baffling, past Posey, who is undoubtedly a franchise cornerstone.
Torres – who knows what he’ll do this year, and for how long he’ll do it
Huff – career year last year, another year older
Uribe – weird skinny fat in fielder who sometimes hits well, another mystery
Really Skinny Panda – WHO KNOWS THIS WHOLE TEAM IS QUESTION MARKS
It’s just a very weird, mostly old, team to project. I think Dave and the crew got it about right.
Umm, I agree that Cincy isn’t one of the best teams in the NL, but Dave Cameron has them as one of the top 3. Also, their lineup is a question mark, but players like Torres, Burrell and Cody Ross are all fairly projectable. Also, Uribe is playing for the Dodgers this year.
The Giants will be what they were last year, a team with a great staff and a great bullpen that will score enough runs. If Belt contributes and some of the guys are able to replicate the years they had last year, they’ll win 95 games.
Well, if you think they are going to win 95 games, you are clearly holding some serious bias and probably aren’t worth responding to.
If you think that Andres Torres, whose career arc has been
Minor leagues until age 31
Posts 6 WAR season age 32
is “fairly projectable”, then I need to take a peek at that projection system.
Burrell and Ross are 2 win players, and Tejada is probably 45 years old. There is no way this team wins 95 games. You are delusional.
@Telo — hopefully you don’t chew a toothpick like Dusty Baker, because you sound like you’re about to inhale it. Relax!
I disagree with you, @Giant Torture, that any of those players are projectable. Torres is a pretty obvious example of a guy whose career defies any sort of projectable patterns, so let’s throw him out. Beyond that, I’d say Burrell is frankly more likely to be Tampa Bay Pat than PTB this year, with his most likely outcome something like .244/.335/.440 with 9 HR in maybe 300 at-bats. But again, with his year-and-a-half in TB figuring prominently in any projection system’s attempt to forecast him, I’d hardly say he’s easily projectable. As for Cody Ross…I was stunned at how high the McCovey Chronicles projections were for him — I’d be shocked if he tops 20 HR at Mays Field.
All in all, I’d have the Giants somewhere between #6 and #9 in my rankings. And I do think they’re better than the Reds, all in all. The Reds have a ton of starting depth, but nobody I’d feel particularly confident giving the ball to in a must-win. Perhaps Volquez’s command comes back this year, perhaps Bruce finally breaks through — but then again, this is the same kind of wishcasting @Telos was ripping on the Giants for.
Can’t wait for Opening Day!
Uribe plays for the Dodgers now.
did people forget aubrey huff won the silver slugger at dh in 2008 (not that long ago). i’d say his stats are very projectable: solid slashes, decent defense, no injuries. also, the dude has transformers tattoos (that’s gotta count for something). on the torres front, i’m speechless. homeboy was unreal (although the end of ’09 had some foreshadowing).
@ Telo. Typo on Torres, he’s not very projectable at all. However, Ross has enough years under his belt as does Burrell that what they’re going to do is fairly projectable at this point. That being said what is very projectable is their starting pitching, couple that with a great bullpen and you’ve got an 85-90 win team.
What I said about 95 wins was that IF Belt is able to contribute and a couple of guys (ie. Torres, Huff) can replicate last year’s season they’ll win 95 games.
Lastly, since you didn’t even know that Uribe wasn’t on the Giants any more you probably weren’t worth responding to, but hey I needed to practice my typing.
Uribe? You mean the Dodger’s SS? Why post in this thread if you don’t even know roster moves made on Nov 15th?
I’m more offended by the future talent ranking of 20th than the current talent ranking of 10th.
I’d take the future of: Tim Lincecum, Matt Cain, Madison Bumgarner (I’m assuming Sanchez will be gone soon), Brian Wilson, Buster Posey, Brandon Belt, and Pablo Sandoval over all but about maybe 4 or 5 teams, and yet they are ranked 20th.
Future means Minor leaguers. Present includes future potential of current roster. Confusing, I know.
Or not.
“Future Talent – 15 percent
The only area that isn’t necessary to put a winning roster on the field is a team’s minor league system, which is why it was the easy call for the least important of the four sections. Developing players from within is a great way to make up for deficiencies in other areas, but teams can win without a heavy emphasis on prospects. With a large payroll and a front office that targets the right veterans to acquire, a team can consistently reload their big league roster each winter, essentially using the other 29 Major League teams as their farm system of choice.”
Uh no. In the introduction to this series it was clearly stated that young controlled-contract players is considered in future talent rankings. Maybe Dave forgot that too?
http://www.fangraphs.com/blogs/index.php/2011-organizational-rankings-introduction/#comment-611530
Dave Cameron says:
March 21, 2011 at 3:52 pm
Future talent includes anyone under club control beyond 2011, regardless of their major league experience level.
“Future Talent
This area will deal with the relative strength of each team’s farm system. For those who have undergone several years of struggles while focusing heavily on developing internal talent, they will find their reward in this category. Likewise, teams that have mortgaged the future will be dragged down by the slow flow of value that may be expected from the current state of prospects in the system.”
Maybe you’re right DrBGiantsFan, but I can’t see it. Anyway, I think it’s safe to assume that Fangraphs aren’t ignoring the value of Buster Posey and Tim Lincecum.
People need to stop crying about this. It doesn’t matter. They’re just rankings. (Although this one is correct, as are most of them, in my opinion). Go back to gloating about winning the Series. At least the rest of us can understand that.
Surprisingly, this ranking is about right though, as prosenblum points out, not enough credit is given for the young talent, especially the pitching.
The tone of the article, however, is all negative. I see no justification for that.
I think the author felt that the positives were given for the team coming off a national championship.
Also, as has been said numerous times elsewhere, the system isn’t ignoring the team’s quality young pitching. It’s just not counted when ranking the strength of the team’s minor league system.
I’m aware that these rankings are using Top Ten Prospects and nothing else for the future talent component, in direct contradiction to what Dave Cameron said in his introduction to the series.
However, young talent that is under team control is thus ignored, making these rankings roughly worthless for what Cameron said they were for–ranking the team’s ability to contend for the next few years.
In some cases, notably the Giants and Marlins, this omission is a gross distortion. Somehow, the Giants ranking came out about right anyway, but Cameron should have noted this positive in this post.
“they did, after all, have the highest team WAR in baseball,”
– I did not know that.
Consider the abysmal start the Giants had against the NL West last season and that they were 1 game above .500 when Posey arrived.
As a Giants fan I find being ranked 11th to be fine. I am just a little perplexed at how the future talent on this team is only good enough for 20th while the LAA are 5th?
If we look at just minor leaguers on the top 100 the Angles have 3 top 100 (1, 51, 85) after graduating no one of significance and the Giants have 2 (33, 16) one year after graduating Posey and Bumgarner. So the Angles have more (and the best) prospects but is having one top prospect and 2 lower end top 100 prospects really better than having 1 upper tier (belt) and 1 middle tier (Wheeler) prospect and Posey and Bumgarner?
There were only 2 people who were rating the minor league systems so there’s a large jam at 20th.
#11 according to Fangraphs, #1 according to our World Series Championship.
since the only NL teams above them are PHI, CIN, ATL, and COL, they really are in the top-tier of the NL. I don’t think anywone would argue those 4 teams are _that_ much better than SF. As a giants fan, it seems like a fair ranking to me.
“#11 according to Fangraphs, #1 according to our World Series Championship.”
You’re right – this whole series of team rankings is designed to rank teams based solely on their 2010 performance. Well done.
The apologetic tone of this review isn’t needed. This is a very fair and realistic preview of the Giant’s future.
i totally agree. from the comments, it seems like some people are interpreting this series like in-season power rankings. if that were the case, then yes, i think this rating would be a little low.
but as a ranking of the organization going forward, it seems right on. I’d put the giants at 7th or 8th in terms of present talent or power ranking. but the farm is pretty depleted, they have a history of bad contracts and a couple of their key pitchers are going to start earning big money soon.
so their organizational outlook is probably a few places behind their power ranking.
who doesn’t have a history of bad contracts ??
world championships since 1977
SF: 1
Seattle: 0
Go back to ESPN.
Would all you who are complaining that some of the present talent should be future talent, rather that Posey was counted in “future” instead of present? Because present-talent gets more weight than future talent does.
There’s going to be some overlap between the two. Get over it. Basically, anyone that has had more than a cup of coffee in the big leagues, is present talent. I don’t doubt at all that when they compute the present talent score, they take into account how many years of control those players are under.
Might it be nice if Dave were to write an article at some point going through how they came to a present talent “score” for a team? Sure. But it isn’t necessary, really.
Posey is an outstanding young player under team control for the next 5 years. Thus, he is both present and future talent. Is that so difficult to understand?
Maybe “Future Talent” should be defined by age (</= 25) rather than by Minor vs. Major classification for these next year? This not only would give the Giants and other teams due credit for having young talent on the Major League roster, but also hopefully mute some of the big points teams get from having minor league talent that, while may be very promising, is completely unproven in the Majors.
It does raise the question, by example: Would you rather have MLB Rookie of the Year Buster Posey or, had he not been brought up until this season, stud catching prospect Buster Posey?
Well that’s easy. You take Posey now. I can’t see any reason why you wouldn’t.
I take your point about the age, but really, it doesn’t matter. The idea of this is that everything comes together in the final ranking. Maybe they should have just called it “Farm Strength” instead of “Future Talent” to avoid this confusion. Although I’m sure some people would still manage to bypass the English language and complain all the same.
In my English language, the term “future” does not mean “minor league only.” Besides, Cameron said that future talent included young players already in the majors in his introduction.
If you don’t think that a team’s ability to contend over the next few years, which is what Cameron said they are ranking, is influenced by having or not having good young players under team control, then you are the one who is confused, as well as in the need of English lessons.
@GiantHusker: I pasted in what the introductory post said about “future talent” above. I don’t remember the post saying that future talent included guys already up, and I can’t see it, but I’m willing to be proved wrong. It still doesn’t matter though. The idea that Fangraphs (Fangraphs!) is failing to recognise the value of having Buster Posey cost-controlled is crazy. They set their definition of future talent as it was to be included in the rankings, yet people are imposing their own, different, definition. That’s not a very sensible way to base, let alone try to win, an argument.
And then it would drop the Giants down in present talent, and it would all come out in the wash.
Or do you really think Posey et al. should be counted twice?
Posey and Bumgarner should definitely be counted twice. They will be helping the team in the present, as well as in 5 years (the future).
I have a couple of issues here:
1. Future talent: The young core has already been extensively discussed. The comment that the farm system is Brandon belt and a bunch of prayers is just ridiculous and shows ignorance of the farm system. While there are no Buster Posey’s who are slam-dunk sure things, the Giants have been quietly accumulating a large cohort high ceiling prospects in the lower levels of the farm system. While they all won’t become stars, it is very likely that several of them will. I’m telling you, it ain’t just a bunch of prayers!
2. Talent acqusition: Yes, Sabean has made a few spectacular mistakes. The Zito signing is probably Magowan’s fault and he is no longer the Managing Partner, but the AJ trade certainly belongs to Sabean and the Rowand deal probably does too. Still, he has also had his share of successes. Yes, Torres and Huff were surprises, but Sabean gets no credit for them at all? He was brilliant and persistant in acquiring talent for the stretch run last year. Let’s not forget Jeff Kent, JT Snow, Robb Nen and Jason Schmidt from earlier in his career. Sabean record as GM in 13 seasons is 1 WS win, 2 NL Pennants, 4 NL West Champioships, 6 playoff appearances, 9 winning seasons. Before he took over, the Giants had finished dead last in the NL West for 2 consecutive seasons with Barry Bonds on the team. A GM doesn’t compile a record like that without knowing something about talent acquisition. The current scouting department led by John Barr is a vast improvement over the days when Dick Tidrow as calling all the shots there. This analysis ranks the Giants way too low on Talent Acquistion.
Farm System was ranked 23rd by Baseball America. I know nothing about the Giants system and I’m sure some are more than just prayers, but that doesn’t mean the ranking is wrong. It is relative to everyone else.
Now that they’ve graduated so many guys (and I’m lumping Belt in with this, as he’ll likely be the starting 1b by June even if he doesn’t break camp with the team), the minor league system is actually pretty barren. Wheeler is years away, and just about everyone else tops out at a 3 WAR ceiling.
Graham,
That’s simply not true and shows a complete lack of knowledge about the Giants farm system.
On future talent, FG has the Giants ranked higher than BA does (they’re 23rd in BA’s talent rankings), and I’m sure if KG did similar rankings he’d have them in the same range.
Yes they have a lot of guys who could become regulars and/or even stars. So does every system. Thomas Neal, Zach Wheeler, Gary Brown, Francisco Peguero etc. are all interesting players but they’re pretty underwhelming for top 5-8 or so organizational prospects. Thomas Joseph has impressive power for a youngster, but what system doesn’t have a 20 y/o with limited raw power who doesn’t walk, has limited defensive value and k’s a lot?
You’re obviously very well acquainted with the Giants farm system, and you can see the potential in all of these guys. I see it too. There are some interesting pieces in that system who could become very good. But those guys aren’t top prospects yet, and there are hundreds of prospects in their range throughout baseball. The Giants shouldn’t get any more credit for their longshot prospects than any other team does, and it’s not like they’re substantially deeper than any other organization.
I totally see how Dave’s brisk writeoff of the farm system in this post would irk someone more closely acquainted with its depth. But this isn’t an article about minor league depth, or about the minor leagues at all. In this birds-eye view, we’re concerned with top prospects that are a good bet to contribute in the near future. Current top prospects, not potential top prospects down the road if things break right. In that category, the Giants lag pretty far behind, and that’s pretty much a consensus view among people considered educated in such matters.
That was not supposed to say limited raw power. Tommy Joseph has excellent raw power. I wrote limited defensive value in two places and neglected to cut the “limited.”
And on talent acquisition, obviously Sabean gets some credit for picking up guys who did very well. But he also gets some blame for Zito/Rowand/Renteria. On balance, it’s not really fair to look at only those two huge hits and say he’s an above-average GM. His love of veteran players paid off bigtime last year, but he still followed a set model, and it’s much more common for a 33 y/o 1B/Corner OF coming off a bad year to decline than it is for him to put up the best season of his career.
I give him only a limited amount of credit for Torres, too. He was floating around AAA in the Giants organization for two seasons as organizational filler, and despite an excellent 2009 season the Giants were poised to give the starting job to Eugenio Velez out of ST last year. A lot of teams sign guys like Torres to fill out the minor leagues. Over 2 years Torres forced his way into a lineup through excellent play in an at-first limited role.
If Sabean had bucked conventional wisdom and acquired Torres to start in the majors from the beginning it would’ve been a total freakishly awesome win. That’s not really what happened, though. He deserves some credit, definitely, but not “holy crap Sabean pulled a 5-win player out of nowhere, what an awesome GM” credit.
You think that’s it is “very likely” the Giants will produce 3 or more star players, not including Belt, from the current crop of low minor prospects. Do you realize what a star player is? It is extremely unlikely this will happen and you should rejoice if one or two becomes a star. The Giants don’t currently have a star position player outside of Buster Posey. The Royals should be happy to have three plus certified stars from their current crop of prospects, and there system is as good as anyone. You need to relax.
I absolutely think it is likely the Giants current farm system will produce at least 3 star players. You are just not knowledgeable about what they have down there.
How many people, at this time last year, thought Brandon Belt would be a top 30 prospect in all of baseball?
That and while, yes, Huff and Torres were our biggest WARers with the bats last season, the fact that the rotation is mentioned only in terms of their rising cost and nowhere in the Present Talent area is a weak point, everyone knows it’s a pitching team.
Seriously dude, you really think the talent of Lincecum, Cain and Sanchez factored nowhere into this ranking?
Go back and read the explanation of these posts. The present talent article was already written weeks ago. It’s called the Team Preview. This article is a summary of all of the other preview posts, with additional comments on the strength of the organization as a whole.
I think there is a minor math error in the above:
Baseball Operations – 77.73 (19th)
I poked around the other Rankings (prompted by someone pointing out that THE METS were 16th!) and find that 77.73 is more like 17th, and the Mets are also ranked too high.
According to the Minor League Power Rankings on this website the Mariners were 16th and the Giants were 20th.
Org. rankings…
Mariners – Future Talent – 85.00 (t-5th)
Giants – Future Talent – 75.00 (t-20th)
If you’ve been following along, there were like… 10 teams tied with and 85 score. That means the M’s talent falls anywhere between 5th and 15th. It’s part of the limitation of having only 2 voters determine the future talent rankings. Something that I am sure Fangraphs’ authors will admit to and fix in the future.
But for now, it is what it is. We need to stop harping on it because it’s not doing anything but cause people do be confused and angry.
no question, giants minor league systems isnt thats great, but the organization has great future talent. so yeah if Buster Posey is helping the team now and going to help them in the future, he should count for both.
Why would you double-count the same player? It’s not like they’re ignoring the fact that Posey is young and under club-control in the current talent rankings.
Because young players who are cost controlled are much more valuable than a bunch of players who are impending FA. It’s not counting twice, it’s counting Present Talent and Future Talent and yes, some players may contribute to both.
Sigh…do you really think they’re not already thinking about the value of cost-controlled players in present talent? If so, you really give these writers no credit whatsoever. This isn’t a ranking for 2011. It’s organizational strength, now and in the foreseeable future. Fangraphs isn’t ignoring that the Giants have Posey for 5 more years at club-control prices.
Dave Cameron: Salaries were included in the financial resources category. Present talent was focused on how good the team will be in 2011-2012, while Future talent looked at years beyond the next few. Future talent was not exclusively a look at the minor leaguers
so no, they didnt count that Posey is young and under club control in the current talent rankings.
So instead of Posey getting (for example) 20 points of value in current talent you’d prefer he get 15 in current and 5 in future? Maybe 10 in current and 10 in future?
What if Torres has a current value of 5 points? Does that make a difference in how you;d evaluate Posey’s value (in this exercise).
What’s wrong with giving full credit for both? He’s good now and he’s going to be good in the future.
So he should get 20 in each? What about 40 in current?
Whatever you want to give him for Present Talent, he should get the same amount for Future Talent. The Giants control his contract for 6 more seasons. Hmmm… maybe he would get 6X as many points for future talent as for present?
That’s counting him double. That makes no sense. I give up.
No, it’s not counting him double! It’s counting him for his contributions in 2 different categories. Not the same thing!
I was going to write a big ol’ rant about our young core and the future talent ranking, but it appears that my fellow gents have beaten me to it, so I guess I’ll bitch about the 10th ranking in present talent (Rockies 5th?! c’mon). I know there’s a lot of potential pitfalls in the lineup, but there’s also a lot of depth and how good does the offense really need to be with the best pitching staff in all of baseball? (I’m not saying the Phillies don’t have the best rotation, but I’ll take our bullpen over any other NL teams besides the Padres).
Also I happened to wander over to baseball prospectus to see their 2011 projections and they have Giants with the best record in the NL (that’s right Philly) and third in majors behind only the Evil powers in the East… just saying
I find the analysis of the farm system as being “Brandon Belt and than a lot of hopes and prayers to be particularly unfair. In Hulet’s list (which I’m assuming Dave is alright with, because well…he employs him) Zach Wheeler is the 33rd ranked prospect. I feel like when you’re that high, the words hope and prayer don’t do the player justice.
He’s a pitching prospect though. Every pitching prospect, to some degree, is a hope and prayer, and if you’re not even in the top 25 yet, that’s most certainly accurate.
I agree. When BA ranks them #23 they do so with a disclaimer that they get credit for recently graduating Posey and Bumgarner and that the system will likely rebound in the near future. That comment by Dave showed the kind of sloppy, snarky analysis we’ve all come to know him so well for around here.
I think Dave is likely still smarting a bit over last year’s #24 ranking for the Giants and can’t quite get past it.
I don’t know what to say. I wish I could downvote this comment more than once.
you can….just log in under a diff handle and IP… :)
Now i’m even starting to lose faith in the Fangraphs readership. Comprehension is apparently too difficult for a lot of these folks.
What’s the point of further argument, Baseball America rated the SF Giants
2010 Major League Organization Of The Year
http://www.baseballamerica.com/today/majors/awards/organization-of-the-year/2010/2611034.html
Game Over ;-)
This team can be a perennial contender if the front office identifies the right players to throw money at, and, more importantly, begin to avoid the wrong players.
Isn’t this true for almost every team
No not really. Depends on how big your FA budget is. Many teams rely on cost-controlled young players to compete. Take those away from an org and now FA spending won’t have much of a discernible affect.
Wrong! The Giants will be perennial contenders for several years due to the talented core of young players they have assembled. They also have the ability to keep it going a lot longer due to a solid scouting/drafting operation and a favorable financial situation.
DrB you are a fanboy. Embrace it. Live it.
But please, stop commenting the same thing over and over again. We get it, you like the Giants. Enough.
Thank you for the advice.
The team I root for is right there in my screen name. Of course I embrace it! I have never, ever claimed to be an impartial observor. If you think that negates the value of my comments, you are free to ignore them and move on. If you have a rebuttal, that’s good too. Taking a cheap shot at my fandom? Well, knock yourself out. That doesn’t prove I’m wrong, though.
they won’t have to pay $20 mil/year for ballpark after 2017 iirc so the Giants might rank around 8th-10th in income or even better if the A’s leave town.
@Cameron wrote: “It’s also unlikely that the Giants continue to get 33 starts apiece from each member of their rotation. ”
Continue? I guess you forgot about Wellemeyer’s injury last year. I guess it was just “lucky” Bumgarner was ready to step in for him.
I’ve decided this series is really stupid.
Every post is:
- Post
-Comments by teams’ fans disagreeing
-Comments by other fans telling those people to stop being homers.
-meta commentary commenting on style of other’s comments
I’ve also decided this series is really stupid.
Every post is:
-Post
-Comments by teams’ fans disagreeing
-Comments by other fans telling those people to stop being homers.
-Comments by other commentors commenting that the comments are stupid.
So just read the initial post and skip the comments.
Giants fan.
Fine with #11 ranking. Could have been a little higher, could have been a little lower. But in line.
Fine with skepticism that average players like Torres and Huff will continue to play above-average ball. It’s warranted.
Fine with the snark generously dotting this article. We’re the slightly-out-of-shape, completely-unremarkable-looking guy who just left with the hottest girl in the bar, the heroes in the Phillies caps slowly shaking their heads as they gaze into the bottoms of their cosmopolitans (intended). We should be catching incredulity from all sides right now.
Fine with 84, 85 wins this year and narrowly missing the playoffs. That’s how I keep on seeing this team. Offense still has holes, and the injury bug seems to be casting a long shadow: overworked starters, old position players, etc. Doesn’t matter. Nothing can kill this buzz.
All that said, if we make the playoffs again this year and we’re essentially healthy, we’ll be dangerous. With my fat, ugly Gints, I can’t ask for more than that.
Congrats again to Phillies and their fans on your 2010 WS title.
You act like Phils fans are Yankee fans or something, like they expect to win every year. good grief go stab a dodger fan in a parking lot or somehitng to make your self feel better.
you act as if that’s not how phillies fans act
I have found everyone one of these posts very informative. The one thing that has been least informative, but receives the most attention, is the actual ranking number. There are so many moving parts, so many unknowns it is impossible to rank beyond low, middle and top tier. Take these for what they are: writers insight into the organization.
For what it’s worth, here is the predication machine’s projections.
http://predictionmachine.com/Predictalator/Predictions/MLB2011.aspx
They have the Giants winning an average of 89.4 games, 5th best in the majors, 2nd best in the NL. Although the Rockies are near dead even with 89.1 wins.
Giants also won the World Series 9.6% of the time in 50,000 runs good for fourth best behind the Phillies, Red Sox and Yankees.
Thanks for the excellent link.
Slamcactus- thank you for being one of the few people who actually provides well positioned statements.
Daniel- it amazes me that we two-thirds of the way people are still arguing about the definition of future talent. For god’s sake you pasted the Dave’s explanation and people still are arguing about it. After the first three of four posts I understand that some people may have been confused. But after 20? I’m sorry but at this point I think its fair to say that confusion has given way to stupidity. Daniel, do us all a favor try to be the very first person to post a response to all of the remaining Org Rankings posts as they come in and paste Dave’s explanation every 15 minutes or so
In terms of ranking teams based on how well they are positioned to be “successful” over the next several seasons, I still think it is a mistake to ignore strength of opponent.
The Giants are fortunate in that they don’t play in the NL or AL East. They are a good team that is a likely playoff contender this year and probably next (barring major collapse).
That is more than can be said about several of the teams ranked above them, if only due to their respective divisions.
If things like market and other non-controllable factors are considered part of an organizations strength or weakness, divisional landscape should be as well.
While I agree with you on the AL East. I don’t really see the huge difference between the NL East and the NL West.
Both divisions have two very strong teams at the top. Maybe ATL/PHI is slightly stronger than SF/COL but not significantly and besides if you are one of the teams at the top you don’t count yourself in the strength.
Both divisions have one terrible team, AZ and WAS.
Then I would venture to say that the middle two teams are similar but that SD/LA are more likely to compete than NYM/FLA.
Excellent point! League and division are huge omissions. That is part of the reason that Baltimore is way overrated at #15. They are far more likely to finish last in their division than to make the playoffs.
believe the NL West was +10 last year….continually underrated…
“believe the NL West was +10 last year….continually underrated…”
So five teams being a combined 10 games over .500, in a single season, is equivalent to being continually underrated? (You know that averages out to just 82-80 across all five teams, right?)
Quite a leap.
Not a SF fan, but this team has the players to be a world series contender for years to come. If SF wins back to back to back World Series they’d still be ranked 11th by Fangaffs.
10th is too low for a financial resources ranking, especially if this to reflect it going forward. The Giants are poised to enjoy the best financial health West of the Eastern Seaboard:
-They’ll sell out every game this year at the least, and 2012 season tickets already have a wait list.
-They are undoubtedly the premier baseball franchise on the West Coast right now. Outside of the Lakers, I think it’d be hard to argue that there is another west coast sports franchise with a stronger fanbase and brand affinity.
-Their stadium is beautifully self-financed, and is one of the most valuable physical assets of any team in baseball.
-They make larger media profits than most franchises with part-ownership of the most powerful radio station in NorCal and a presciently negotiated one of the best TV deals around.
-Their ownership group is a who’s who of regional/national power brokers.
-They have some of the best top-tier talent on cost-controlled cheap contracts. I expected Dave to note how big a benefit this is.
-They have two truly bad contracts on the roster, Zito and Rowand, but both expire in time for extending those same stars on cost-controlled contracts. This should be highlighted better in this article, it’s not like they are Howard or ARod deals here.
To top it off, I’d note that most every team considered to have more ‘financial resources’ is also is more leveraged by far right now, including NYY. Look for the recent Forbes story; outside of the Phillies and Giants, every major NL franchise has a very dangerous debt load, with NY, CHI, LA and StL all over ~50% debtload-to-revenue. Don’t be surprised when the Giants increase payroll/organizational expenditure substantially every year for awhile, while all those other premier NL franchises eke out marginal growth at best. Bottom line, their financial resources are far better than whatever surface-level market-size/expenditure data used here suggests.
That was a great post! Very well stated and right no the money!
Err….that should be “right on the money.”
Great points. Those were some of the same type of items that were noted about the Phils back two years ago when they were ranked in the teens. The authors may to a good job regarding the future development of MLB talent, but not the future revenue generation of each club.
Anyway this whole series is a joke, which team has a better shot at winning this year, the Giants or the rockies? Clearly the giants. Forecasting anything for more than a year is just silly. Teams change too much. makes this entire exercise a silly attempt to push up page views and start arguements.
#6Org lives
agree with most of that except to point out that the Dodgers should have much much more potential financially, in the long term….not sure how they got into their current mess but 2x the population of SF bay area if i read it right – metropolitan area 12 million to 6 million….eventually the TV deals won’t even be close…
You’d have Selig to thank for that, then, since he nixed the $200mil “loan” Fox offered to McCourt for a rediculously huge amount of future broadcasting rights. That would have further marginalized revenue in the future, and illustrates just how deep a hole LA’s in. Did you know the Giants will get far more $$ per tv household than the Dodgers do? The Giants garner profits per seat at their yard far in excess of Dodger Stadium’s middling game-day margins. For that matter, look at how Moreno’s Angels have been slaying the Dodgers in their own market ever since ’02. Inasmuch, it’s also my argument that simple market-size analysis is less important than business savvy.
Good article. I guess you guys need to restate that young major leaguers are counted in the present talent, not future.
Given that they are, and as a biased Giants fan, I’d argue the present talent ranking is just a little low. It seems pretty clear in a 2011 power rankings situation they should be in the 7-10 range. And given that present talent incorporates the future value from cost-controlled years the Giants should get a bump from that if anything. While it’s true Lincecum, Cain, and Sanchez are all about to get much more expensive, they have huge value in the sum of Posey, Bumgarner, Sandoval, and possibly Torres if he keeps hitting. Add in some good spare parts and I think 10th is selling them short.
And there’s a nice synergy between the pitching staff getting more expensive at the same time as Zito and Rowand coming off the payroll, meaning they can afford to keep who they want while having the same ability to toss around a couple $6-10mill contracts to fill holes around the core.
Of course they could screw that up by signing a Sabean approved vet to a bad contract, which is why I agree with the BB Ops ranking. But I think the Giants are more or less locked into contending for the next 4-5 years, which should net them better than 10th in present talent.
You sure about that?
http://www.fangraphs.com/blogs/index.php/2011-organizational-rankings-introduction/#comment-611530
Dave Cameron says:
March 21, 2011 at 3:52 pm
Future talent includes anyone under club control beyond 2011, regardless of their major league experience level.
Yup, Cameron lied. Half the people posting here are apparently not capable of understanding that.
Which explanation of Future Talent is the lie?
Do you have a link as to where it’s discussed? Thanks.
Who cares? None of this is real.
Why is it so significant that the Giants clinched their playoff berth on the last day of the season? The had the highest WAR in MLB, their Pythagorean win total was 94 games, and the had a 90 win rival in their division.
Would you consider them a better team if they’d played with the exact same roster in the NL Central or AL West, where they could have romper to the division title by 10 games?
agree with that.
the number 11 organization in baseball in the year 2011 is starting MIGUEL TEJADA at shortstop, and has literally no good back up plan.
does that not sound a little dumb?
It’s a problem, but not a big problem. The Giants are a strikeout/flyball pitching staff which cuts down the number of chances at SS. The only reasonable alternative out there was Jason Bartlett and the Padres had to give up two pretty good relievers to get him plus pay him about the same $$$ as Tejada.
Last year they started the season with Renteria and no backup plan. I think we know how that turned out.
Wow! Both of you are off-base in this argument. Everybody knows SS is a glaring weakness for the Giants, but that is only one position of 9–not the entire basis of their ranking.
The fact that Giants pitchers yield relatively fewer groundballs does not mean that shortstop defense is irrelevant. It still is more important than any other position except pitcher and catcher. Also, it doesn’t change the fact that the shortstop has to bat, also, apparently in 5th place in Bochy’s scheme of things.
The Giants spent way less to get Tejada than the prices paid for Hardy or Bartlett. Looking at Tejada’s stats when playing his preferred position at short with Pads last year, there is some real potential comparative value, possibly similar to Burrell’s resurgence last year, if only as a stopgap until when truly better SSs become available.
Some of the perceived “dumbness” is a simple case of short-term roster positioning, not an over-arching flawed philosophy. The Giants usually go with a 12-man staff, which should be lauded for its apparent positive effect on pitcher-health. It’s arguable that the Giants manage their pitching, both in-game and through the long season, better than any club in baseball.
A 12-man staff leaves you with a 4-man bench. Since the Giants carry a back-up catcher and defensive OF replacement, you need the IF to be covered by 2 subs. As such, Sabean and Bochy seem okay with getting by with Fontenot and then DeRosa as SS back-ups. While neither of them are good defensively, it’s pretty unique bench depth to have the whole IF and both LH/RH pinch-hitting covered by two experienced above-average subs. It seems to me that the extra pitcher has produced a greater win value than an extra bench player that fred and husker seem to want.
With Belt getting the nod and two good bench players (Ishikawa and Schierholtz) seemingly without roster spots, I think an improved SS back-up is something of a lesser priority immediately, and best left for May or June. As much as Sabean is knocked for a mediocre transaction record overall, he has a good in-season track record over many years. There is SS upside in the high minors that will benefit by a month of patience to allow the team to find out how much Rohlinger, Crawford and Noonan can contribute at short as well.
I agree that this article has a general overall negative tone that many of us have come to expect when the topic is the Giants. That first paragraph is incredible. Their WS title is always prefaced with words like “improbable”, “lucky”, “hot at the right time”, etc. As if the Giants are some kind of sham champion (or “shampions”…..I just coined that phrase, all royalties should be paid to me directly).
Point #1
Yes….why does winning the division on the last day matter? The Giants made a lot of in season adjustments and were 51-30 over the second half of the season….projecting to a 102 win season.
Point #2
The Giants are always characterized as old. In fact, the every day lineup will be younger than Philly (includes Brown for Philly but does not include Belt for Giants)….and the starters will be more than 4 years younger (I’ve done the math).
Point #3
Yes, obviously the Rowand and Zito contracts are bad. Those contracts roll off as Posey, Bumgarner, Belt, etc. enter arbitration and free agency.
Point #4
Its obvious that the Giants just eat away at the Fangraphs/Sabermetric crowd. Their GM supposedly does not embrace metrics (probably overstated, the Giants do have people who look at this stuff).
The stats crowd thinks the game is played on a spreadsheet or on a Monte Carlo model, but alas it’s played on the field. Apparently, things like camaraderie, clutch hitting and all those intangibles (that can’t be measured) really seem to count…..or at least they did in 2010. I can’t wait to see the splooge that is ejected when they get to Colorado and talk about Tulo and Cargo’s “metrics”…..(Rockies, above the Giants….really?).
Giants 92+ wins
NL West Champs
Playoffs???????…..we’ll see
What’s that? Another cynical, poorly researched article about the Giants by Dave Cameron?
…
I’ll get my coat.
It seems like Torres is getting underrated here. He, admittedly, took a long time to find himself offensively. But, he’s been hitting the ball well since 2007, even if it was in the minors.
In 2009, he hit even better than he did last year, even if it was in only 170 PA. I wouldn’t have put too much weight in his minor league numbers in 2007 and 2008 or in his 2009 performance even prior to last year. But, at this point, projecting him to be a 4-5 win player is not unreasonable. It doesn’t happen too often, but players do sometimes establish new levels of performance in their late 20′s. Torres looks much more like a player who finally figured out how to harness his talent than a flash in the pan.
Dave Cameron should write a Giants article every week just so I can lol at Giants fanboys coming out of the woodwork to cry about something that doesn’t affect their team at all. They did this last on year on BtB’s in-season team rankings too.
Here’s an idea for Dave’s next article: compare Buster Posey’s rookie year to Jeff Francoeur’s rookie year.
Brandon Belt named the opening day starter at first base.
Looks like this whole future/present talent thing just got even messier.
I don’t understand this. Firstly, you say the Giants’ present talent is 10th.
I know they got a little lucky with Huff’s performance last year, but he is a proven player, and despite his down year in 2009, 2010 wasn’t even his best year statistically. Plus he can play multiple position and adapt to what players the Giants decide to plug in (like Belt). Sure, I don’t expect him to replicate his 2010 numbers, but I think 20 homers with a .280 average is a perfectly reasonable expectation.
Torres reworked his swing a couple years ago, and though I don’t expect him to be a superstar for 10 more years, he is one of the better leadoff hitters in the game right now, even if his power numbers decline a little bit (and it would still be better than most #1 hitters). He is statistically one of the best outfield defenders in baseball, if not the very best.
Every team has bad contracts, but Zito has the added bonus of being a valuable member of the starting rotation. In fact, if it weren’t for his ridiculous contract, he’d be considered a very solid back end to the best young rotation in baseball. And besides, both Zito and Rowand will be off the books in 2-4 years.
The Giants farm system is not stocked like the Royals; other than Belt (not anymore) and Wheeler, they don’t have any potential superstars. However, they have a plethora of players that could potentially be useful major league players, and you only really need a few superstars surrounded by useful players to have a good team. Plus, it’s hard to maintain a solid farm system when the top is constantly being drained. Lincecum, Bumgarner, Cain, Sanchez, Posey, Sandoval, and now Belt are all in the big leagues, and they each have the potential to contend for a major individual award. With the expanding payroll, the Giants are going to work towards, beyond anything else, locking up their multiple superstars for the foreseeable future.
There is no doubt that the Giants will have difficulty paying their young players, but if success continues, the extra million might become less important than the opportunity to play for a team that is consistently contending. Sure, who knows what will happen in the future, but I’m talking about 2016, not 2012. The Giants, loaded with the talent they currently possess, will be a contender for the next several years at the least.
And the main reason that they barely snuck into the postseason last year is not because they got lucky. It’s because they had a good team on their heels. If the Phillies had barely gotten into the postseason in front of the Braves with 96 wins, would their season just have been luck? The Giants simply had more competition.
I understand not ranking them #1. Or #2. But #11? You aren’t giving enough credit to the best pitching staff in the league accompanied by a solid offense. Ah well, I think we’re used to it by now. Go Giants!
With regards to the farm system, though, you need to take something into consideration. Sure, Posey, Cain, Lincecum and Bumgarner were all first rounders, but Sanchez, Wilson and Romo were drafted in Round 20+, Sandoval was an international FA signing (for not much money) and Belt was a 5th rounder who the Giant’s scouts thought could benefit from a tweak in his stance.
It could just be a run of luck, or maybe they’ve got a great scouting staff and will continue to have a productive farm system despite the present lack of superstar first rounders.
Putting emphasis only on those contracts that have not panned out as hoped, while minimizing the fantastic FO decisions like Huff, Torres, Burrell, Ross, etc. makes you look foolish.
There is a glaring technical oversight in this analysis. You see, much like the Blues Brothers, the Giants are on a mission from God. This must be worth a couple of points in the rankings.
Please be more careful in future analyses, Dave.
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