2011 Organizational Rankings: #23 – LA Dodgers
In some ways, I feel like I’m rewriting the Astros post, just adjusting for the fact that there’s a bit more talent at the big league level. That might come across too harsh, but it’s hard to find any single area where the Dodgers excel, and the grades below reflect that.
Present Talent – 75.83 (t-18th)
Dodgers Season Preview
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Future Talent – 75.00 (t-20th)
Financial Resources – 75.00 (t-20th)
Baseball Operations – 72.50 (28th)
Overall Rating – 74.63 (23rd)
For the most part, the Dodgers are pretty unremarkable. They aren’t a bad team, and they have a few really nice pieces to build around, but they’re probably behind both Colorado and San Francisco in the race for the NL West. Their farm system has some interesting pieces in it, but they’re not brimming with young talent like some other organizations. They play in a major market in Los Angeles, but they haven’t turned that into a significant competitive advantage in terms of revenue yet. In most areas, they’re middle of the pack. Most areas – not all.
There are two things that stand out about the Dodgers organization, and unfortunately, neither is a positive. The big thing that sets them apart from most Major League clubs is their shaky ownership situation. That’s probably not a strong enough term, actually. Faltering? Precarious? Dubious? Crumbling? Pick your favorite adjective, as long it’s negative and portends impending doom.
The divorce of the McCourts looms over everything else in the organization. When this mess all began, the front office claimed it would have no effect on how they operated, and then they proceeded to decline to offer arbitration to all of their free agents and generally operate like a small market club. They retained Hiroki Kuroda and Ted Lilly, and pursued a few mid-level free agents, but they still weren’t exactly flexing large financial muscles over the winter. With the future of the team’s ownership in a seemingly perpetual state of uncertainty, the Dodgers are simply not able to capitalize on the resources they should have at their disposal.
Eventually, the McCourt divorce will be settled, but it seems inevitable that the team is likely to change hands in the not too distant future, regardless of how their disagreements are divided up. That will probably be a good thing, as it’s going to be hard to find a worse owner than a petty husband and wife team who leveraged themselves heavily to buy a franchise that they probably couldn’t afford in order to use it as the family ATM. But ownership transfers are not quick and painless, and while Dodgers fans can look forward to a post-McCourt era, that could legitimately be several years away. Until then, the team’s ability to operate to the full extent of their revenue potential is likely to be heavily compromised.
That said, the Dodgers do have a payroll north of $100 million this year, so it’s not like the McCourts have completely hamstrung the front office from being able to build a contender. Unfortunately, the baseball operations department has added to the teams woes by making a series of ill-advised moves and building a roster that is less than the sum of its parts. We don’t need to rehash the contracts given to Juan Pierre or Andruw Jones, or the disastrous trade of Carlos Santana, though those moves still haunt the team to this day. Instead, we can simply look at the roster that the front office has put together and wonder exactly what the plan really is.
The Dodgers have two fly ball lefties in Clayton Kershaw and Ted Lilly, who will both give the team’s outfielders quite a bit of activity this year. To back up those two, the Dodgers have compiled the worst outfield defense in baseball, with a corner outfielder in center, a first baseman in right field, and a couple of DHs sharing time in left. I guess the hope is that Kershaw and Lilly rack up enough strikeouts to bail out their less talented teammates, but why would you punt outfield defense when also building a rotation that involves those two guys?
The head scratching doesn’t end there. The team made two aggressive moves this winter, targeting Juan Uribe as an upgrade at second (okay, understandable) and then getting in on the middle reliever silliness by giving Matt Guerrier a three year contract. Even though the dollar figure isn’t that high, this isn’t a team that had huge problems in the bullpen, and they had other issues on the roster that were ignored this winter.
Overall, Ned Colletti’s track record in Los Angeles just isn’t that good. He’s attempted to follow the model of his mentor, Brian Sabean, but has made similar mistakes without figuring out how to hit home runs on some low cost guys to make up for it. As it stands, he’s put together a high priced third place team whose youngest talents are starting to get expensive (and are mostly overrated in general) and there isn’t a strong wave of talent ready to come up from the minors to supplement the rising cost of keeping this group of players together.
Again, just as with the Astros, the Dodgers have kept a fairly old school approach to building a roster and unfortunately haven’t proven all that adept at it. When new ownership eventually does take over, they should probably consider making some changes in the baseball operations department as well. Those two areas of weakness for the organization are bleeding over the talent side of the team, and it’s hurting the Dodgers chances of contending now or in the near future. They aren’t a bad team, but they’re got a ways to go before they’re a good one, and there is no obvious path between where they are now and where they want to be.
How do you guys think the financial analysis of each team would have been different if this series had waited till after the latest set of numbers released today had been considered?
The LAD are still in the top 5 and actually saw a 10% increase in value over last years valuation…
Yah, I don’t quite understand the financial assessment. While their ownership situation is a mess right now, the team itself provides a solid revenue stream that is above the median and doesn’t have any crippling commitments that I’m aware of.
Regardless of who ends up owning the team is going to be able to field a group that is in the top half of payrolls in the near future. Yes, they have a financial limitation that they won’t give out any long term deals for about a year, but it looks like that issue alone is docking them a ton of points.
Additionally, I do feel like I’m already seeing a bit of bias that teams who performed badly last year are seeing some drooping on categories across the board. If we imagine these same rankings last year, they were in almost the exact same position but with one extra year of the divorce to work through. By my math that should have meant their place would be similar or improve this year, instead they’ve dropped 9 spots?
I’ll be keeping an eye out, but I am kind of wondering if in future things the survey method for the contributors should try to adjust for recency biases on these. Otherwise, much of these rankings will just be telling us who was good last year.
Well, remember, the readership here picked how to weigh each aspect of the organization and current talent ranks up there. Last year, I don’t think current talent was weighed as heavily. If the current talent is not as good as believed, then that’s going to hurt the ranking as well. Eithier, Kemp, and Loney were all highly thought of once. Of those, only Eithier has managed to be good and his defense is holding him back. Pitching wise they seem okay, but the field players are not a great bunch.
Also, the argument is that they haven’t used the revenue generation of Los Angeles to their advantage. Part of that is the penny pinching of the McCourts, a problem made greater now by the divorce problems.
Pitching wise they seem great.
Kemp has been better than Ethier if you are looking at WAR, his struggles last year should not be expected to repeat going forward.
Dave’s evaluation of the Dodger outfield could be changed if Tony Gwynn Jr wins an outfield spot, in which case it is possible that Kemp could move to right field.
In light of recent developments, looking back at comments like this one is rather grimly amusing . . . if anything, the FG writers were unduly optimistic about LA.
there isn’t a strong wave of talent in the minors?
Sands, Gordon and De La Rosa could help this year….
Define “help”.
I hear ya, but Sands is better than the LFers they will run out there on Opening Day, and RDLR is closer than many think. He has turned heads in the LAD org. this spring.
Gordon could be ready this year….his glove is, not so sure about the bat, but he will be exciting to watch once he’s up.
To be fair, the Dodgers have made the play-offs 3 times in 5 years with Ned at the helm and they’ve been to the NLCS twice.
I think it’s safe to say that those two NLCS appearances are likely more the result of Ned stumbling onto a free Manny Ramirez and less his abilities as a GM. He’s also riding the wave of guys drafted by Dan Evans and Paul De Podesta.
What CotP said. The one competent move Colletti’s made in the last year is bringing back Kuroda. The rest range from not-good-but-palatable (Lilly) to unconscionable (Dotel).
So far it seems Fangraphs is very bearish on the NL.
Yah, at this rate it seems unlikely any NL team will make the World Series, right?
What league are Halladay, Lee, Johnson, Lincecum, Jimenez, Oswalt, Carpenter, Wainwright, Grienke, Kershaw, Hanson, Hamels, and Gallardo in again?
They’re in the league where it’s easier to pitch.
I imagine we’re going to be hitting a slew of AL teams here soon. In this 15-25 ish area I expect to find the Orioles, White Sox, Angels, Mariners, and Athletics. The top end national league teams should be above them, including the Phillies, Braves, Reds, Brewers, Giants, and probably Rockies, maybe Padres.
Remember there are also two extra teams in the NL, so it may look a bit NL heavy for now, but the AL will catch up pretty quick.
I’d call the Orioles due or just a little past due. Maybe the Mariners too, although it’s probably best not to start talking about that.
Now THIS is where I’m a bit boggled by the financial ranking. Regardless how much the divorce and possible sale of the team plays into it, being a huge market team with a payroll that will always hover around $100 million doesn’t seem like it should be tied for 20th in financial resources.
I did withhold judgment until I read the article-I thought maybe I didn’t know the contract situation of several players, and that perhaps they were hamstrung by giving out a ton of big, long term deals. But having not read anything like that, I looked it up. The worse contract they’re stuck under seems to be the 3 years, $33 million given to Ted Lilly. They’ve only got three payroll obligations for the 2013 season. Sure, they’ve got to deal with arbitration for a lot of guys next year, like Matt Kemp, Andre Ethier, Chad Billingsley, but with $100 million in payroll, they have a lot of flexibility to turn the roster over if they make that decision.
They’re not ranked 20th in financial resources. Even if they were going cheap-o in the draft and refusing to spend money on international free agents, this team is still at least middling in that area.
“being a huge market team with a payroll that will always hover around $100 million doesn’t seem like it should be tied for 20th in financial resources. ”
The dodgers may be the 2nd biggest market in baseball, and they can only swing a 100M payroll. Chicago is smaller than LA, has two teams, and both have higher payrolls than the Dodgers.
LA is a huge team, but either the dodgers are terrible at leveraging that market, or the market isn’t a very good baseball market.
It’s a great baseball market – the Dodgers are always at the top of attendance and support for the team, while not on the level of East Coast fanaticism, is consistently strong. The documents unearthed by the McCourt’s legal proceedings revealed the owners’ plans to hobble the team in the coming future and swallow up cash, using the Dodgers as their own ATM machine as the article so perfectly illustrated.
McCourt seems to be waiting for his 2013 TV deal to bail him out. He’s just hoping he can stay above water until then. This is a team that could easily have a $150 million. The Dodgers have one of the 5 dirtiest, greasiest, most awful upper management people in the league
“This is a team that could easily have a $150 million. ”
While I agree, thats totally irrelevant until McCourt is gone. Right now the Team has a 102M payroll, which makes them 12th in the league. In another year, I’d bet its below 100, and they’re firmly in the bottom half of the league.
They are by no means, one of the top teams financially, until this divorce has been settled.
But how can you argue that they are 20th?
Because they’re in the 15 range by numbers alone, and the teams around them don’t have to deal with a screwed up ownership situation.
The teams around them have the same money, and way more flexibility.
I don’t see any way the Dodgers are not top-10ish in financial resources, even with the McCourt divorce. $100M payroll in a huge market.
Really, who’s above them? NYY, BOS, CHC, PHI, maybe LAA. And who else?
Not the Mets. Their ownership situation is way worse.
The dodgers were 12th in total salary in 2010. There were another 4 teams withing 10M of them.
I wouldn’t be surprised to see them in the bottom half of the league salary wise in the upcoming season. They’ve been dropping $10M+ each of the last couple years.
And while the Mets ownership situation is probably worse (its not way worse), the Mets swing around roughly $60M more than the dodgers, despite being the B team in their city.
That is not true, they have not been dropping 10+ from the payroll each of the last few years.
That makes no sense, in the middle of the divorce this year, the team did not cut payroll. If you look at the team’s contracts there is no possible way that the team could subtract as much money as you are suggesting.
According to baseball reference:
2008:118M
2009:100M
2010:95.4M
RC: How do you explain the $102 million in 2011?
Thats still a 20M dip in 3 years, and its BRef’s estimated value. Nothing hard yet.
But a great deal of the money in 08 and 09 was going to players who were not on the roster, Schmidt, Jones and the like. So if you really look at the 25 man roster and the budget, it has not decreased.
Check out Cot’s… there was a 20mil drop after ’08, but 2010 was pretty much the same as 2009 (Cot’s uses opening day salary figures)
Are folks expecting the divorce issues to drag on for 3-5 years? Or is financial resources a prisoner of the moment ranking?
I don’t see LA in the bottom 3rd for LA’s financial resources (remember tied for 20th means they are in the 20-24 range, depending on how FG groups this)… folks are trying to knock 12th down to 16th by saying other teams are close which then begets 20th?
If other teams within 10mil can be considered close, can’t you by similar logic look at teams ABOVE LA on salary and say they are close to being higher in terms of payroll too?
Table: Money in ’10 and ’11 was and is still going to players not on the roster: Schmidt, Jones, Pierre and Manny.
Source:
http://www.truebluela.com/2010/11/30/1840626/dodgers-payroll-worksheet
Yes, but the funds being payed in 2011 to players like Manny, and Schmidt are not being counted. If they were, then the Dodgers would have a 2011 payroll over 110 mill. You are making my point for me. The Dodgers ACTUAL payroll has not decreased.
It’s not as if that money is coming from the sky. It’s going from the Dodgers to players who haven’t played for them in years. I don’t dispute the meta-point you’re making that their payroll went up this year, I only make that point to note that their spending is still constrained by those costs.
Basically these rankings come down to how much saber-magic these teams reportedly are using.
Except they aren’t.
Which makes the Cleveland ranking odd…
Gotta agree with the others here. They have a solid revenue stream and a big payroll. Issues aside, they are financially better off than most teams, let alone being in the bottom 1/3. Additionally, their rotation is very very solid and even with their gaping holes, could compete. Sands, Gordon, de la Rosa and Trayvon Robinson could help seal those gaps. I am thinking LAD deserve at least the top 15.
How can the Dodgers be ranked T-20th in financial resources? When was the last time they ranked that low in payroll/expenses?
I could see being worried about the McCourts, but didn’t they add payroll this year?
Dodgers > Mariners
People are really overlooking the following:
“But ownership transfers are not quick and painless, and while Dodgers fans can look forward to a post-McCourt era, that could legitimately be several years away. Until then, the team’s ability to operate to the full extent of their revenue potential is likely to be heavily compromised.”
Cameron isn’t saying they don’t have the resources, but that they won’t be able to fully utilize them. I could also see weird injunctions happening preventing spending on contracts, that would otherwise be good, until ownership is sorted. The Dodgers are a mess financially, but it has nothing to do with the revenue stream. I don’t get where all the disagreement is.
Yeah, there’s strong potential for court interference in team operations until the McCourt divorce finally starts coming to a close, and that has to be figured in. All these folks who want to argue the financial ranking for LAD really ought to check this out: http://www.dodgerdivorce.com/
The Dodgers at 2/3 their full spending capacity still have a lot more money than the Washington Nationals, whom they’re tied with for 20th. $40 million is a pretty significant chunk o’ change.
The Dodgers have never operated having a fully utilized financial market. The point is that even with the divorce, the Dodgers have a much higher budget than many teams, they have shown that even in the middle of a divorce, slashing payroll Padres style is not going to occur. I fail to see how not fully utilizing is replacing actual budgetary power.
Imagine watching Dodgers-Giants games with Santana and Posey. Too perfect.
“a petty husband and wife team who leveraged themselves heavily to buy a franchise that they probably couldn’t afford in order to use it as the family ATM”
It’s Arrested (Parking Lot) Development
For what it’s worth, I was a bit surprised at how low the Dodgers came out in the resources category as well. It seems like our writing staff put a good amount of weight into the McCourts problems. There’s clearly upside there – the question is just how long it will take for the Dodgers to get new owners in who can really tap into their market’s potential.
I get the McCourt situation being a factor, I really do, but having the Dodgers rank below the NY Mess alone makes this ranking really suspect. BA now ranks the Dodgers farm system/prospects 11th http://www.baseballamerica.com/today/prospects/rankings/organization-talent-rankings/2011/2611472.html
they still have Logan White and DeJon Watson doing a good job with a solid scouting team; NedCo is a mediocre GM but he’s done some good things, and the team’s been to the playoffs 2 of last 3 years. They also have a better coaching staff this year than they have in recent years, alongside Mattingly they have Davey Lopes, Dave Hansen, Pentland, Hillman, and Tim Wallach. I guess it depends on how much import you put on the limbo the McCourt situation has on the whole team from top to bottom, but even if you do ranking them 23 and behind the Mets seems above and beyond reasonable. Sorry.
I suspect that a lot of folks don’t realize exactly how bad the Mets’ situation is; this disaster with the McCourts has been hanging out there for quite a while now, while the mess in New York is just beginning to unfold.
Ned’s not mediocre. He’s awful. Let’s give him Ethier, Kuroda and Saito. Everything else? Horrendous. Andruw Jones, Jason Schmidt, Juan Pierre, Octavio Dotel, Scott Podsednik, Rod Barajas, Casey Blake, Matt Guerrier and so on and so forth. We’re not just talking kind-of unpleasant moves, we’re talking franchise-killing ones. They’re STILL paying Schmidt and Jones, along with Manny and Pierre. Also, one of the two playoff teams you mention (2008) had the 7th best record in the NL and was entirely due to playing in a terrible division. That’s hardly a credit to Ned.
Casey Blake has been a franchise killer?
I’m not about to argue he’s a world-beater, or top-five 3B, but that was never expected of him. Hasn’t he been…I dunno, exactly what would have been realistically expected of him? Has he blocked some awesome 3B prospect?
Colletti traded Carlos Santana to get him. Rod Barajas, AJ Ellis, Dioner Navarro (Round 2!) and Hector Gimenez are the catchers the Dodgers currently have to work with. Blake’s had some fine moments for the Dodgers, sure, but he wasn’t worth an elite catching prospect.
I wonder if the rankings aren’t penalizing teams that don’t seem to have a lot of potential (to win it all), even if they’re not actually bad teams. Static mediocrity seems to be getting lumped in with truly awful at the bottom of the rankings here.
Yes, but then you look at Milwaukee at #22, a team with 2011 WS hopes, and you wonder about the whole methodology.
I’d say 15 is about right for Milwaukee for current talent.
15th best roster in the majors, in a small city, with no farm system? 22 sounds about right.
I mean really, we’re talking about a team here that has nothing in their farm system to replace yuniesky betancourt.
Not many teams do? SS prospects are very very weak in the minors currently.
Yuniesky Betancourt is consistently the worst SS in baseball. Maybe in baseball in the last 20 years.
I’d be surprised if there are 10 teams in the MLB that don’t have a guy in AAA who could be expected to outperform him.
I thought this was “fangraphs,” not “conventionalwisdomgraphs.”
Justifying the organizational ranking: Jay Gibbons says hi.
Jay Gibbons is not going to make the roster buddy.
Shocking. Funny that, like everyone has said, they have a 100 mill payroll that I’m sure they will raise over the season by making some moves mid season, yet are tied for 20th. Their farm is getting stronger, they still have their young core minus Broxton for 2 more years, have a team good enough to make the playoffs this year, and they are the 23rd best franchise in baseball.
Makes sense (from fangraphs, just not reality)
I don’t get what people don’t understand. The Dodgers ownership has been skimming money. The divorce is going to force a sale. When teams go up for sale payroll tends to be slashed.
… Except for the Cubs, where being for sale led to some big/bad signings to drive the price/attractiveness up.
The next step, naturally, is for LAD to win the division. Heh Heh.
There also is the case of some teams getting a bump up/down for being sabermetrically inclined or not … Whoolner in Cleveland for example. That’s not too terribly surprising given the nature/perspective of this site. As long as it’s not too large of a bump, it won’t hamper the entire process.
You do get sense that everyone is just waiting to see where SEA and TOR rank.
“The Dodgers have two extreme fly ball lefties in Clayton Kershaw…”
Considering, in his career, Kershaw has a higher GB% than FB% and has hovered around even the last two years, I think “extreme fly ball lefty” may be an overstatement.
Nonetheless, their outfield defense is atrocious.
Maybe they really should play Gwynn, Jr. in CF and move Kemp to LF.
What they should do is move Kemp to RF, Ethier to LF, and Gwynn to CF.
I may post this on every organizational ranking. In Dave’s opening description, he said that young talent already on the team would be considered in “Future Talent” as well as minor leaguers. It is now clear that only “Top Ten Prospects” are considered in “Future Talent.” This also contradicts Dave’s assertion that the purpose of the rankings was to predict success for the next 3 years or so.
Thus, the rankings are invalid for their purpose, as well as contradictory to what was promised.
The Blake comment was in reference to the fact he was traded for Carlos Santana because the dodgers wouldn’t throw in money to cover Blakes salary. Certainly not a good move
In light of recent developments, looking back at the comments complaining that the Dodgers’ financial resources were rated far too low is rather grimly amusing . . . if anything, the FG writers were unduly optimistic about LA.