2012 Organizational Rankings: #1 – NY Yankees
Read the methodology behind the ratings here. Remember that the grading scale is 20-80 (50 representing league average) with extra weight given to 2012 and Revenue rankings.
2012 Organizational Rankings
#30 – Baltimore
#29 – Houston
#28 – Oakland
#27 – Pittsburgh
#26 – San Diego
#25 – Minnesota
#24 – Chicago AL
#23 – Seattle
#22 – Kansas City
#21 – Cleveland
#20 – New York NL
#19 – Los Angeles NL
#18 – Colorado
#17 — Miami
#16 — Diamondbacks
#15 — Cincinnati
#14 — Chicago NL
#13 — Milwaukee
#12 — San Francisco
#11 — Washington
#10 — Tampa Bay
#9 – Toronto
#8 – Atlanta
#7 – Detroit
#6 – St. Louis
#5 – Philadelphia
#4 — Anaheim
#3 — Texas
#2 — Boston
New York Yankees’ 2011 Ranking: #1
2012 Outlook: 69 (1st)
The Yankees are never going to be an overly efficient franchise. They’re well beyond the point of diminishing returns, as every additional dollar tacked onto the payroll brings less and less in terms of on-field production. That said, they are a winning machine and a powerhouse team that has become increasingly more well-run in recent years. Once top heavy, the roster is more well-rounded than at any point since the late-90s dynasty.
The headliners are unchanged. Alex Rodriguez and Derek Jeter are still the A-list celebrities in a lineup that went relatively unchanged after posting a 113 wRC+ last year, the second best mark in the game. Those two are no longer the key cogs, however. Robinson Cano and Curtis Granderson drive the offense with Mark Teixeira and Nick Swisher providing plenty of support. Russell Martin rediscovered his power stroke last year (with some help from his home park, obviously), and Brett Gardner provides the speed element the club lacked for the better part of a decade. Andruw Jones is arguably the best fourth outfielder in baseball, and Eduardo Nunez offers speed off the bench. Offensively, the Yankees can beat you with power or their legs.
After winning 97 games despite a questionable rotation last year, GM Brian Cashman went for broke this winter. Bartolo Colon and A.J. Burnett were replaced by Hiroki Kuroda and Michael Pineda. Freddy Garcia returns to the back of the rotation, as does Ivan Nova (88 ERA- and 96 FIP- as a rookie in 2011). Phil Hughes may or may not return to his 2010 form, but the Yankees are going to give the 25-year-old another shot anyway. Andy Pettitte got sick of sitting at home, so he came out of retirement and will step back into the rotation once he’s ready to go, tentatively scheduled for May. Then there’s CC Sabathia on top of all that, the rare example of pitcher getting better after a move into the AL East. Pineda’s shoulder-induced DL stint and Pettitte’s late signing take care of the seven pitchers for five spots thing, at least temporarily.
With a bullpen led by Mariano Rivera, Rafael Soriano, and David Robertson, the Yankees have a strikeout end-game trio that is arguably the best in baseball. Gardner provides elite defense while Swisher, Teixeira, A-Rod, and Cano rate no worse than average depending on which metric you prefer. They also have guys like Jack Cust, Jayson Nix, Dewayne Wise, Chris Dickerson, and Russell Branyan stashed away in Triple-A as emergency replacements. The Yankees are deep with bats and arms, both right-handed and left-handed.
2013+ Outlook: 61 (t-3rd)
Acquiring a pitcher of Pineda’s caliber is going to hurt, and the Yankees traded their best position player prospect arguably since Jeter to get him. Even without Jesus Montero, Marc Hulet ranked the team’s farm system as the tenth bast in the game. The top prospects are levels apart, with quality arms like LHP Manny Banuelos, RHP Dellin Betances, and RHP Adam Warren at Triple-A and high-end bats like 3B Dante Bichette Jr., C Gary Sanchez, and OF Mason Williams in the low minors. There’s not much between the two groups, but that upper level pitching depth will be useful either on the roster or in trades.
Those trades have become more focused in recent years as well. Because the whole “win at all costs” mentality isn’t well suited for watching young kids take their lumps, the Yankees have used a number of their best prospects to acquire “now” players over the last few years. Swisher was a heist that cost nothing of value, but they gave up Ian Kennedy, Phil Coke, and Austin Jackson to get Granderson. Pineda (and RHP Jose Campos) cost Montero and Hector Noesi. The ill-fated Javy Vazquez reunion sent Arodys Vizcaino, Melky Cabrera, and Mike Dunn packing.
Trading top prospects is nothing new for the Yankees, but they have gotten smarter about it. They’re no longer trading for big-name players on the downside of their career (think Raul Mondesi and Kevin Brown), they’re targeting players in their prime years with several seasons of contractual control remaining (think Granderson, Pineda, and Swisher). There’s no reason to expect Cashman to change course going forward, so that tenth ranked farm system is as much for the rest of baseball as it for the Yankees. Add in the under-30 guys already on the team like Cano, Pineda, Gardner, Hughes, and Nova, and the Yankees will remain competitive well into the future even as A-Rod, Jeter, Teixeira, and Sabathia succumb to age-related decline.
Financial Resources: 77 (1st)
Forbes estimates the franchise’s current value at $1.85 billion, easily the highest in the game. The YES Network generates huge revenue and is the regional network all others strive to be, although the Yankees technically only own ~33% of their flagship station. Over 3.6 million people walked through the turnstiles at three-year-old Yankee Stadium in 2011, the tenth consecutive year the Yankees ranked either first or second in total attendance. All that attendance means big concessions bucks, and the Yankees happen to control the majority of the concessions at their new stadium through Legends Hospitality Management, which they own along with the Dallas Cowboys. If that’s not enough, the club’s deal with WCBS AM is up after this season and their radio broadcast rights will be one of the most sought-after free agents on the market.
Most teams couldn’t dream of having a $189 million roster, but the Yankees are actually looking to shed $20-30 million off their payroll to get down to that number by 2014. If they manage to pull it off, they’ll get under the luxury tax threshold for the first time since the system was implemented in 2003. It’ll reset their tax rate (currently 40%) and also refund a portion of their annual revenue sharing payment thanks to the new Collective Bargaining Agreement. The Yankees paid more than $100 million to other clubs as part of the revenue sharing program back in 2010, so even a small-percentage rebate will be a bit more than chump change.
The Tri-State area — New York, New Jersey, Connecticut — is home to over 22 million people, by far the largest local market in baseball even when you consider that a significant (and unfortunate) portion of the locals support the Mets. The Yankees are a global brand and the interlocking NY is one of the most recognizable logos in the world. They’re a money-making machine; an unmatched financial giant thanks to ticket sales, concessions, the new stadium/shopping mall, and the YES Network. That 77 financial grade on the 20-80 scale might actually be a little light.
Baseball Operations: 64 (t-2nd)
Cashman is baseball’s third longest-tenured GM, but it hasn’t always been clear which moves were his and which came from over his head. The line has gotten a little less blurry in recent years, but every once in a while ownership will get trigger happy and spend lavishly on a Soriano-type. It’s in their blood.
The pro scouting department Cashman created prior to the 2006 season has been an unheralded piece of the club’s success, unearthing surprise contributors like Colon and Cory Wade. The statistical department led by Michael Fishman handles all the grunt work. The Yankees do still have some issues trusting their own prospects — they went through a period of being overly aggressive with promotions before becoming overly conservative — but they’ve streamlined the decision-making process at the big league level.
The number of knee-jerk reactionary moves has gone down in recent years while the number of well-informed decisions has risen. Cashman’s ultra-patient personality is a stark contrast to vintage George Steinbrenner, but the Yankees are always going to have some element of day-to-day chaos. The front office is smarter than it has been in the past, and that huge payroll sure helps cover up any mistakes.
Overall: 70 (1st)
Our methodology has changed but the results have not — the Yankees are still the class of baseball. They’re atop our organizational rankings for the third straight year, and you can argue that the current roster is the best they’ve fielded during that time. The revenue streams continue to be best in the game and the decision-making processes continue to be refined. Money doesn’t guarantee success in baseball, but it sure makes it a lot easier when you can afford the best talent available. Adding money to smart people is how you end up with one of the most valuable sports franchises in the world and baseball’s premier organization.
Agreed.
The Dodgers just sold for $2.15B, does that mean the Yankees estimated value is a little low or that the buyer overpaid for the Dodgers?
Franchise value and sale price are different things. The Dodgers are worth whatever right now, but Magic & Co. are paying for growth potential.
How are sale price and value different things? Ex definition value is defined (in economic terms) by what someone will pay.
According to a noted expert, Warren Buffett, “price is what you pay, value is what you get”. The Dodger’s value is probably around $1.5B, maybe less. “Magic” and Co simply overpaid by a substantial amount, and there isn’t enough growth potential in the world to bail them out.
Value is not what someone is willing to pay. According to a noted real world expert, Warren Buffett, “price is what you pay, value is what you get”. Value is based on the present day value of future profits the owner is likely to earn from the investment.
The Dodger’s value is probably around $1.5B, maybe less. “Magic” and Co simply overpaid by a substantial amount, and there isn’t enough growth potential in the world to bail them out.
Yankees would sell for a lot more than 2 billion if they were sold.
There aren’t enough zeroes for how much the Yankees would sell for.
Here’s some more zeroes.
000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000
That’s what I was thinking.
I think that these Baseball Ops rankings are in serious need of overhaul. They seem way too dependent on Finances. In fact, it seems like the result of this exercise was to list the teams generally in order of how strong their finances are (with a little bit of elbow room for how sabr-friendly the team’s front office is).
Do you guys really think that Cashman and Co.’s WAR as a GM/Front Office is 2nd best in baseball?
they really just need to be taken out altogether.
A lot of the comments in this and other posts of the strong financial teams are guilty of double-counting. They are ranked high in finances and the ranking in, say, future talent is justified by their strong finances.
I’m not sure whether this is a flaw just in the comments or whether the FanGraphs writers used this reasoning when they voted. In either cases, the Daves should explicitly forbid it in future ground rules.
I actually enjoyed this series, perhaps I should say the progenitor of this series, more when it was primarily a ranking of the teams’ management.
I can get rankings of finances, this year’s chances and future prospects in hundreds of locations.
Still, I did enjoy the entire series, though the ending was known in advance by everyone.
I think the problem is that the financial resources are getting effectively triple counted, which makes their weight way too high. The 2013+ outlook and the baseball operations grade both seem to take into account the financial resources, but then they are counted as their own category as well.
I think the problem is that most people think they can do better. Equate it to the bloated man screaming “BUM!” at a pro athlete.
The writers of this series are likely more qualified to make these evaluations than the casual reader. Get over it.
Do baseball teams get penalized if they don’t have a good WAR/$ ratio? No? Then no one cares.
Almost always, yes. Which means almost all of them should and do care.
yeah these are great if you just completely ignore their front office ratings, most of which make no sense.
Andruw Jones arguably the best 4th-outfielder in baseball?!? For goodness’ sake, the guy was just about out of baseball 15 months ago.
Seems to me that staffers were allowed to sum up their favorite teams on these things. That leads to some howlers such as Andruw. Which I’m not sure is good for a site like this.
328 PA in 2010 = 124 wRC+
222 PA in 2011 = 131 wRC+
best 4th OFer MIGHT be an exaggeration, but if you know 5 better 4th OFers in mlb, id love to hear them.
DAVID MURPHY, no?
murphy played 43 more games than Jones last year and had .3 less war
Aubrey Huff?
No, he’s the 3rd OF now.
I guess I’ll stand corrected in that ZIPS does see Andruw as a top-of-the-line sub outfielder this season. PECOTA, not. So OK, it’s not ridiculous in that a projection system sees him as such.
I still personally see it as so. Aside from agreeing with PECOTA here, the absolute best 4th-outfielder ought to be either a true centerfielder or projected to hit well better than anyone who is.
And I’ll stand by my more general observation, that there’s been more than a little homerism in these writeups.
vernon wells should be
@Richie
Well, Jones does hit far better than anyone who is a true centerfielder.
Allen Craig?
Gerardo Parra should be up there among the “best 4th outfielders”, and I’d take him over A Jones anyday.
just wanna say i think the FG team did a great job this year. their methodolody was laid out clearly, so we know how they got the results they did. there had been bias issues in the past, but those have been taken care of. still not crazy about the baseball operations aspect, but its a minor complaint.
job well done.
Thank you.
Thought I’d let you know, all of your links for the other teams’ organizational rankings are broken (they have an extra “index.php/” in them).
Huh, not sure what happened there. Thanks, I’m working on it.
Agree, this was a great series, and also agree that the Yanks should be tops.
But 2nd best in Operations is a little overrated, in my mind. Look at the dead weight on that roster! Cashman hands out too much cash for what he gets, he doesn’t need to, there is no special Yankee clause in the CBA that says they get paid more, and if he’s letting himself get stepped on by the team owners, he should probably man up a bit and say “Bad Stein! Down boy! I got this, go back to your office!”
Operationally, they do a lot of things great. But I couldn’t give them a 2nd place ranking, they’ve handed out too much money for too little (relative) return. It’s just not good enough.
2nd might be a stretch, but as ive stated plenty, its all guesswork. i do imagine if the 30 mlb teams had a fantasy draft of ppl to run their baseball operations, cashman would be taken in the top 5.
The Yankees are tied with three other teams for second place and there’s another club two points back. They’re too close to separate, they could have easily ended up anywhere from first through sixth.
It’s funny when people complained about a team like the Phillies being ranked 23rd because they’ve gotten results, and then complain about the Yankees being second because they’ve got so much money. Perhaps it’s that they truly think Philadelphia could be run better and that the Yankees’ front office is doing things right?
The Yankees are the now-stereotypical example of how money has warped the game. It’s hard for me to agree that the Yankees’ (and Angels’, and several other teams) baseball ops are among the best in baseball when they have so much capital to work with. If every owner gave their GM as much money to play with as Cashman has for several years now, and as DiPoto had this year, it would be a lot easier to gauge the quality of their ops. The implication that DiPoto had such a great offseason is crap. Who wouldn’t have tried to sign Pujols and Wilson if their owners had given them $300m to hand out?
Tampa Bay, on the other hand, is somehow managing to do what Billy Beane did 10 years ago – put a team out that’s competitive at the highest level, without paying through the nose for it. Now that’s a good baseball operation.
and that’s why Tampa Bay was ranked first by a landslide
agreed. The financial resources bit should be held in high esteem in the overall rankings, but should not impact the front office rankings.
How were the Phillies ranked? I consider them a team with tons of money to spend and a poorly run front office. They are the mid 00s Yankees in a lot of ways.
Yeah andruw Jones is a damn useful 4th of. I don’t know that the statement mike made there is so over the top. I mean is craig a 4th? Remember Jones isn’t a young guy about to take a job or a full platoon guy. He lierally is the yankees 4th outfielder.
It makes no sense to say that the Yankee front office is making smarter moves than it used to. I assume that comparison is between today and, say, around 2002 (the beginning of the post-dynasty years). Because in the decade before that they made some truly dynamite moves, bringing in the likes of Paul O’Neill, Tino Martinez, David Wells, and David Cone to supplement Bernie, Jeter, Pettitte, and Rivera on the way to a string of championships. Since that era, Cashman’s front office has made nothing but unimaginative moves that amount to little more than acquiring high-priced talent.
If you think they have gotten smarter in the last decade, you’re just not paying attention. Before the 2002 season, they signed the premier free agent 1B on the market (Jason Giambi) to a 7 year deal. Having “wised up” in the interim, before the 2009 season they signed the premier free agent 1B on the market (Mark Teixeira) to an 8 year deal. How does this reflect an evolving decision process?
But the perfect case in point: before the 2003 season, the Yankees trade for Javier Vazquez. They then jettison him after a lackluster 2004. Fast forward to 2010, and they once again trade for Javier Vazquez, buying high on him after a career year. They jettison him after a lackluster 2010. Again, I ask, how does this reflect an evolving and smarter decision process?
Interesting footnote to Vazquez, they traded Nick Johnson to acquire him. They then reacquired him for the 2010 season. The Nick Johnson reacquisition was one of the greatest head scratchers of all, because that was the year that they decided they didn’t want World Series MVP Hideki Matsui back *at any price* (Matsui signed a cheap one-year deal with the Angels), and justified this by alluding to desiring more lineup flexibility and balking at Matsui’s age (one must assume because of durability concerns). But with Mark Teixeira already fixture at 1B, Nick Johnson could only fit in the lineup as a DH. And if one was looking for durability, Nick Johnson—notorious for his injury-proneness—was not the way to go. To jettison Matsui in favor of Johnson, to me, reflects not a smart decision process, but one without any semblance of internal consistency.
Great analysis. 3 players over 10 years.
Oh, I’m sorry, let’s just instead cherry pick Nick Swisher as the crown jewel of a decade of front office brilliance.
But your comment is particularly inane because I wasn’t saying anything about whether or not these were “good” or “bad” moves. I was merely commenting on the decisional processes that led to moves involving these players. If you see progress or evolution there, good for you. But to me if you acquire the same player twice after a good year, and get rid of him twice after a bad year, then I think the burden of proof is on you to say you’ve changed the way you making baseball decisions.
You get points for smugness and sarcasm, though.
So they should not acquire players after good years?
Frank, as in any marketplace, the idea is to buy low and sell high. Nick Swisher was one of the few guys they bought low on, which is why they like to hang their hat on that move.
Take a look at Vazquez’s career stats though. Can you tell me in which two years he posted his two best career ERAs? You guessed it, the two seasons before he was acquired by the Yankees. Can you tell me in which two years he posted his two worst career ERAs? You guessed it, the two seasons the Yankees had him, after which they traded him away. This is the exact definition of buy high, sell low.
Peter,
You mean like Bautista had his career year the year before he was extended? You realize that a good year indicates the player is better than you thought before that season? This is not just random fluctuations up and down with no meaning.
“Since that era, Cashman’s front office has made nothing but unimaginative moves that amount to little more than acquiring high-priced talent.”
I disagree.
Your argument is that you fault the Yankees for signing Giambi and then signing Teixeira after that? The Yankees are ALWAYS going to sign players. It doesn’t mean that they’re any worse an organization than they used to be. They simply signed a player. Now they’re “unwise” for signing Mark Teixeira?
Then you go on to list a couple signings and trades that didn’t work. I happened to think that trading for Vazquez after his 2009 was a pretty good move to shore up that 2010 rotation. It happened not to work out.
“Good” or “bad” is not the point. As you say:
“The Yankees are ALWAYS going to sign players. It doesn’t mean that they’re any worse an organization than they used to be.”
I agree. No worse. But no better, which is what this article argues.
I don’t necessarily fault them for either the Giambi or the Teixeira move. But it seems pretty clear to me that a similar thought process went into both signings, no?
What, the thought process of getting the best player available?
The second Vazquez trade and the Johnson FA signing arguably show that the Yankees have gotten smarter, because both were essentially one-year deals. The Yankees could afford the money they paid Vazquez and Johnson, and had the freedom to “jettison” them after 2010.
Rich, the Yankees gave up prospects for Vazquez (of which they have a finite supply), not a lot of money (of which they have an infinite supply). How could the Vazquez move be evidence that they’ve gotten smarter, when they made the exact same move 7 years prior! Again, I’m not necessarily saying that either move was smart/dumb. The point is that it’s the same! So how can you say it’s smarter the second time around?
My Nick Johnson comment was more of a footnote to my points about Giambi/Teixeira and Vazquez x 2. All I was saying with Nick Johnson was that letting Matsui walk and acquiring Nick Johnson (both of which would have cost 1-year, low money deals), reflects a decisional process that is not internally consistent—that is, irrational.
You’re just being ridiculous. They were not the “same” decisions just because the same players was involved in each decision. There were different costs, different Yankees teams, different player career numbers, etc. Your evaluation is unbelievably shallow. You are saying Matsui and Johnson were the EXACT SAME player and were available for the EXACT SAME cost?
The Yankees gave up Melky Cabrera, Arodys Vizcaino and Mike Dunn for one year of Vazquez. Of those three players, only Vizcaino was a “prospect” and he was years away from contributing at the MLB level. He is currently out for the season recovering from TJ. Melky and Dunn were easily replaceable (in fact Boone Logan, who came to NY in the same deal, basically replaced him).
This is exactly the kind of move a smart, rich team makes – it gives up replaceable players plus a prospect who is not an imminent contributor for one year of a player who is likely to turn in a solid season. A bad result does not mean a bad process.
You’re saying the second Vazquez acquisition was the same as the first. Just look at Vazquez’s age and contract status at the time of both deals and you’ll see that’s incorrect. The Yankees first got Vazquez expecting him to be part of their long-term future. They got him the second time to be part of their short-term future. Just because it’s the same guy doesn’t mean all other factors are the same too.
Giambi and Teixeira are/were both first basemen and expensive FAs, but Teixeira can play a good first base and Giambi couldn’t. With Jeter aging, the value of a mobile first baseman increased for the Yankees. Unless they had reason to believe that Teixeira shared she same negative qualities as Giambi (i.e., he would experience a rapid and bizarre decline linked to juicing), there’s no grounds for criticizing the Teixeira signing based on Giambi’s decline.
We can only say that the Yankees’ signing of Johnson was irrational if we know that Matsui would have accepted a cheap, one-year deal with the Yankees. There were reports that Matsui signed with the Angels because they offered him an outfield spot where the Yankees would have relegated him to DH. If Matsui insisted on playing OF, then arguably it would have been irrational for the Yankees to sign him.
Good process with bad results (i.e., Javier Vazquez) doesn’t mean it was the wrong move at the time.
If you can’t argue that when the same team trades for the exact same player after the exact two best years of his career—with the same result, mind you—then these are similar moves, then you can never argue that any two moves are similar. That anyone would argue that these two moves have essentially nothing in common blows my mind.
I agree that the Yankees have a smart FO – when Cashman makes the decisions. The Yankees have two grade F contracts on their books where ownership went over Cashman’s head: ARod and Soriano.
It seems like you guys are blurring future talent and financial resources. I agree that the Yankees look like one of the best teams in 2013+, but that’s mainly because of their payroll. Their farm system isn’t great and they do not have an abundance of young talent on their roster.
So you guys are just double counting financial resources, making it 50% of the grade. Hard to take this seriously.
Also the Yankees have a good front office, but they are no way the 2nd best. I’d rank the Cubs, Rays, Athletics, Jays and Rangers ahead. The only thing Cashman is really good at is spending a shitload of money. So finances here count for well over 50% of the grade. Great work, you guys.
Nick Swisher for Wilson Betemit.
And do you disagree that the Yankees are the Number 1 organization in baseball? If you don’t believe that financial resources have a huge impact on every facet of the game, and should thus be taken into account in evaluating those facets, it’s hard to take you seriously.
I agree that they are number 1 in the game. But that’s only because their financial resources are so high above everyone else’s. Their front office isn’t great and their farm system/young talent isn’t great.
FanGraphs should have just given them a 90 on finances instead of involving finances in the other categories.
Their front office is more than solid. The Granderson trade is working out well, as did the Johan non-trade. I already mentioned the Swisher trade (which was literally a heist) and some credit has to be given to them for Freddy and Bartolo last year, it can’t have been entirely luck.
Their young talent, including Pineda, is pretty solid too, IMO. They had a consensus top ten farm system last year, and they’re top half again this year after trading their top prospect. Not to mention the glut of young talent at Charleston right now.
I think people discount Cashman’s greatest demonstrated skill as a GM. He consistently finds excellent middle relievers and back end starters of the trash heap. Bartolo Colon, Freddy Garcia, Corey Wade, Luis Vizciano, Alfredo Aceves, Edwar Ramirez, Aaron Small, the list goes on. And while I know that Yankee fans get frustrated that a team with a 200 million dollar payroll needs to turn to a Sergio Mitre or Chad Gaudin as a starter, the fact is he always finds adequacy for the rotation. People dismiss this as luck, yet he does it year after year. It has really sustained them through times when age and injury have crippled their rotation.
No way their front office or farm system is top 3 in baseball, which is what these rankings say.
@vivaelpujols Actually, the rankings don’t say that the farm system is one of the best 3 in baseball. They say that the Yankees are very likely to continue to be successful in the future. A good farm system is hardly the only component of future success.
I didn’t mean to say farm system, I meant to say farm system + young major league talent.
Even using that, the Yankees aren’t in the top 3. Now I have no problem counting finances and front office ability towards future success, but then you can’t also count it in a separate category.
The categories should be:
2012 Major League Talent
Minor League Talent + Long term players currently on the team
Payroll
Front office
I think the ranking makes perfect sense. They have the best team this year and the by far the most resources. If you wanted a team to root for this year and in the future, they’re easily the choice to win the most often.
Along with others, I disagree a bit with the baseball ops ranking. I agree with almost everything that Mike wrote–I just think they’re more of a mid to high 50s ranking. They’re good, and they’ve gotten better, but they’ve made enough mistakes that I don’t think they’re quite that high.
I also think the 2013+ outlook is a tad high. They’re certainly good going forward, but their farm system is good, not great. And the good young players are minimal–Cano, Pineda, and Gardner, really, are the only stars who will be in their prime much longer, and right now Pineda seems a little worrisome. Hughes and Nova are hardly huge pieces at this point. They’ve got a lot of good players on the downsides of the careers, though plenty are starting from a high peak.
Again, none of this is to deny that they’re the franchise you’d want. Their resources will ensure that they’ll be just fine going forward.
Yeah I don’t disagree with the overall ranking. But I disagree with the individual ones. They should have just given the financial resources a 90 or something instead of trying to justify the #1 ranking with the other categories.
I think a methodology change is in order. As we saw in the Red Sox #2 ranking, Future Outlook is too closely tied to Financial Resources and Baseball Operations. What’s the point of the category if it’s just a redux of the other two?
You should revise the four categories and change them into:
Major League Talent
Minor League Talent
Financial Resources
Baseball Operations
Save the future predictions for the conclusion and don’t weight them–there’s no point to ranking a team based on a best guess of what they will do.
I think the fact that they didn’t just look at Minor League talent was to account for people like Strasburg, Upton, Pineda, Heyward and Bumgarner who are not fully formed players yet but are no longer in the Minors.
Ding ding ding.
What they did last year when they split major and minor league talent is what made no sense. If they’re only projecting 5 years out, guys like Hosmer who are under team control for a really long time have a big impact on the future, but aren’t minor league players. What they did last year also resulted in about a 12 way tie for 6th place in minor league talent. This year was a big improvement on that.
I agree that future talent shouldn’t be minor league talent. But it shouldn’t include payroll and front office ability. It should only include players who are actually on the team or in the farm.
Even better than FC Barcelona.
The only franchise that can compete with the Yankees dominance is Takeru Kobayashi.
so, you guys decided to use the 20-80 scouting scale for all this stuff, and then only had one category of one team even top 70? and the closest after that seems to be the 69 in 2012 outlook here…. methinks you clustered everything a little too much
I thought that was the point of the 20-80 scale. I thought it was based on standard deviation. If 10 points = 1sd then only 2.5% of any group should be over 70 or under 30. 2/3 should be between 40 and 60.
Ah. that makes more sense, i didn’t realize that was how the scale worked
Having an issue looking at the Oakland ranking post, seems to be linked incorrectly to the houston post in all cases.
Excellent series. A substantial upgrade to previous years. I enjoyed it very much.
Agreed, I think the process this year was great.
You gotta stop using the word argue and arguably. Driving me nuts.
The yankees don’t really work for these ranking systems. Having basically infinite money to spend makes a skilled front office unnecessary. Just buy the best player available (Giambi, Tex, Sabathia…ect.)
cliff lee…. oh wait
Just because thy don’t get every player they go after does not negate their economic advantage.
Money. Is. Important.
Who makes playoffs this year? Yankees, Phillies, Red Sox, Tigers, Angels, Rangers.
Who makes playoffs in 2014? Don’t really know. Royals? Rangers? Probably the Yankees. Rays? Maybe the Padres. Maybe the Rockies? St Louis?
Who makes the playoffs in 2022, when we won’t know who’s even on an MLB roster? I’ll take the Yankees every day. I’ll take the Red Sox every day. I might even say the Dodgers, the Angels, the Rangers, and maybe even the Mets.
The fact that these teams have enormous amounts of money means that they don’t have to have good farm systems, or good front offices, or even good present talent. The fact that the Yankees are almost a lock for a playoff berth in 2022 primarily based on their finances must mean something. True, it means much less than the fact they’re a 95 win team now. But still.
In a more concrete example, I genuinely think you have to penalise the Rays for being unable to, say, sign Cole Hamels next year.
http://www.baseball-reference.com/teams/NYY/1965.shtml
I’m sorry, but what point are you making? I genuinely don’t understand.
You said the Yankees are a good bet to make the playoffs in 2022. In 1964, they had been dominant for most of the past 40 years for a number of reasons and quickly entered a decade of suckitude.
There was no drop in their financial advantage around that time. The only thing that changed was the amateur draft a few years prior which changed their ability to bring in new talent without limits. Kind of like what happened this year.
A lot can change for good or bad. 1965 was the turning point for the Yankees. No one saw that change coming, from what I understand.
I wouldn’t say any team is a good bet to be good in 2022. There are simply too many variables to make that determination.
Except there WAS a huge change in financial advantage. Those were the cbs years. Cbs was in the process of buying starving and ruining iconic american companies (yankees, fender,) cbs drastically cut the amount poured into the Yankees in order to maximixe the profits of the yankees “division” in an early and titanically unsuccessful early attempt at corporate synergy.
Basicslly when the yankees have been privately owned and not responsible to quarterly share holder reports theyve been consistently competitive outside of a four year stretch here and there. The cbs years are THE ONLY sustained period of failure and are obviously an exception to the other 8 decades or so of competiveness. Completely irrelevant to this franchise going forward.
The Yankees could get sold to the Dolans in 2 years for 3 Billion and get Knicksified for the next two decades. My point is that knowing how they will perform in 2022 is impossible to know.
Saying the future is impossible to know is perhaps the ultimate truism. Or Yogi-ism, depending on the exact wording. But, uh, the Yankees are likely to be in a better financial situation than the Rays in 2022…if you’d like to wager otherwise I’m up for it.
I gave CJ a thumbs up since what he said makes perfect sense (essentially that financial position is likely to be more stable/easier to predict 10 years from now than farm league talent [for instance’, and thus deserves weight), but nothing on this whole thread that makes sense is getting any love.
THEY MIGHT BE RANKED NUMBER ONE BUT THEY CAME IN SECOND PLACE AGAINST THE RAYS TODAY WOOOOO YEAH LET’S GO RAYS
It’s nitpicking, but if the Yankees aren’t 80 on the Financial scale than your scale is a little off.
Their new ownership wants to slash payroll. That’s probably worthy of dinging them a few points from perfection.
Huge financial resources mean nothing if they aren’t going to use them.
Actually, their new ownership wants to slash payroll for one year to reset their luxury tax clock. If the Yankees spend $188.9 million in 2014 and $200 million in 2015, everything over the tax threshold is taxed at 17%. If the Yankees spend $189.1 million in 2014 and $200 million in 2015, everything over the threshold is taxed at 50%. They just need to dip once.
I haven’t seen any indication from the Yankees that they intend to dip for only one year – Only fan speculation. Cashman and Hal make it sound like they intend to stay under going forward, though they haven’t said explicitly one way or the other.
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/03/sports/baseball/the-yankees-explain-their-fiscal-austerity.html
http://www.nj.com/yankees/index.ssf/2012/03/yankees_owner_hal_steinbrenner_5.html
The soft cap penalty would reset, but the big market revenue sharing refund would only apply if they stay under for 2 or more years.
The over cap tax rate is 42.5% this year, not 40%.
Does the 77 on financial resources seem arbitrary to anyone else? Where did those last 3 points go?
It’s an average of our personal rankings.
Only as arbitrary as the entire rest of the ranking system. Everything is arbitrary.
Penis Size is not arbitrary, relative perhaps but not arbitrary.
I score this series of articles a 77 on a 20-80 scale.
Great job on the series.
Christ, why don’t we just move Lourdes to NY, and crawl to the shrine.
http://www.vivaelbirdos.com/2012/4/8/2933319/an-open-letter-to-fangraphs