Nationals in the national media

[Slateman]

Dirks Beintley song on SportsCenter this morning

[Tokeydog]

http://espn.go.com/mlb/story/_/page/120822tripleplay/surprises-disappointments-2013-world-series-picks-mlb

In there they basically slobber over the Nats.  All three pick them to be 2013 champs (This was a look at the future).

[¡Vamos Ramos!]

Dirks Beintley song on SportsCenter this morning

 

Well played

[PC]

The august baseball experts over at ESPN (Jim Bowden, Keith Law and Buster Olney) did a future ranking for teams over the next five years and the Nationals finished 11th.  Yes, eleventh...

Here are the top 11 ranked teams:


 1. Texas        88.7
 2. Yankees      79.6
 3. St. Louis    79.5
 4. Angels       70.4
 5. Toronto      66.8
 6. Boston       64.1
 7. Dodgers      63.1
 8. Tampa Bay    61.5
 9. Atlanta      61.2
10. Arizona      59.1
11. Washington   58.9


Here is the methodology and explanation of the components of the ranking:

If you've been reading ESPN Insider's NBA coverage, you know that we ha've been doing Future Power Rankings for almost three years. We've run with the idea for MLB, but tweaked the process a little bit .


Like the NBA version, we asked our MLB experts, Jim Bowden, Keith Law and Buster Olney, to rank all 30 franchises, from 1 to 30, in five categories. But because MLB organizations are run a bit differently than NBA clubs (and the leagues operate under different rules), the categories are different. For MLB they are:


• Majors: Quality of current big league roster


• Minors: Quality and quantity of prospects in their farm system


• Finances: How much money do they have available to spend?


• Management: Value and stability of ownership, front office and coaching staff


• Mobility: Do they have a lot of young, cheap players? Or old, immovable guys?


The average of the panelists' scores for each category are visible in the bar graphs for each team and are rounded to the nearest integer.


To come up with an overall score, we weighted the categories based on importance.


Major and minor league quality are given the most weight, finances and smarts are given 2/3 the weight, and mobility is given 1/3 the weight. So, for example, if everyone voted your team first in majors and minors, it would be worth 30 points, for finances and management that would be worth 20 points, and for mobility it would be 10.

The final scores are given on a scale from 0 to 100, representing a team's percentage of total possible points.


The scores and rankings are designed to reflect how well these clubs are set up for sustained success over the next five years.

[Jordanz Meatballz]

That management score is laughable at best.

[HalfSmokes]

management shouldn't even be a category since minors + majors + mobility should encapsulate it, I also don't think the minors are that terrible- most positions are blocked, so the lack of talent at the high minors is dire

[Hogie]

Yeah, by my count, if they just collectively rated Washington Management 9 spots higher, the Nats would have been 6th on the list.

[blue911]

ESPN also thinks John Kruk is a baseball maven.

[PC]

Keith Law did the minors part and his opinion of the Nationals tends to be negative.  And re: management, Jim Bowden was one of the "experts".

The "sustainability" part is what got me.  Sustainability should be one of the least concerns for the Nationals over the next five years.

[houston-nat]

My scores:
Majors ...........28
Minors ...........12
Finances ........28
Management .21
Mobility ..........21

I get the knock on management about Davey leaving, and mobility about the Werth contract, but the rest of the org. is well above-average in competence. And we have a "true leadoff hitter."

My total = 73.3 or 4th place

[blue911]

Keith Law did the minors part and his opinion of the Nationals tends to be negative.  And re: management, Jim Bowden was one of the "experts".

The "sustainability" part is what got me.  Sustainability should be one of the least concerns for the Nationals over the next five years.

Law tends to be pessimistic across the board. He doesn't pick on one team or another. With Purke,Rendon and now Giolito being injured/missing a substantial amount of time, there should be concern. If I were ranking teams, I would rank the amount of help needed along with the expected help when ranking farm systems.

[PC]

My scores:
Majors ...........28
Minors ...........12
Finances ........28
Management .21
Mobility ..........21

I get the knock on management about Davey leaving, and mobility about the Werth contract, but the rest of the org. is well above-average in competence. And we have a "true leadoff hitter."

My total = 73.3 or 4th place

But Mike Rizzo is staying and he hired Johnson.  Also, Davey is still going to be in the organization.

And the next manager is likely going to get a very, very good team.  I think Rizzo will have his pick of the best available.

[HalfSmokes]

2. Yankees      79.6 is my favorite, they have one decent starter and nothing in the minors (unless you give the standard NY prospect bump)

[PC]

Here is the component breakdown for these eleven teams:

[blue911]

The mobility scores seem weird.

[KnorrForYourMoney]

The Blue Jays over the Braves, Rays, D'Backs, and Nats. Riiiight. How's Daniel Norris doing in the minors?

[JCA-CrystalCity]

The finance rating seems to ignore contract commitments and budgets.  It is supposed to be "how much money do they have available to spend?"  If a team is saddled with bad contracts, is near the levels at which it can spend without penalty, and it has maxed out its market, then it has to affect its ability to spend.

Also, since we are heading into football season, I think we have a new definition of the "Tampa Two."

[welch]

Ah, the experts. The Redskins were underdogs in SB 17, 21, and 26. In 1992, Sports Illustrated had an expert called Dr Z who assured us that Buffalo would beat the Redskins because the Bills "should have" beaten the Giants in SB 25 and this and that etc etc.

[Vega]

It's quite amazing how incompetent ESPN is. They're the biggest sports network! How can they know so little about everything? 

[Hogie]

Ah, the experts. The Redskins were underdogs in SB 17, 21, and 26.

The Skins were a full touchdown favorite against the Bills!

[wj73]

Note what the first letter in ESPN stands for - "Entertainment".  I don't think of them as a serious sports network.  They are primarily an entertainment network that happens to focus on sports.

[BigMeech]

Yeah, because ESPN really can predict things such as the quality of the minor league system, management, and basically everything else five years down the road.

[welch]

The Skins were a full touchdown favorite against the Bills!

I thought the Redskins would crush the Bills, but the expert at SI "knew" better.

[HerndonNat]

How is management so low?

[PC]

This post should probably go in a thread called "Nationals not in the National Media" but this is close enough...

I've been searching around to see what the national mediots are saying about the "run" Kemp was awarded last night and have found very little.  Did a google search on "alan porter" and alan porter umpire and returned all local media sources.

I watched Quick Pitch on MLB Network.  They showed the highlight but when Ahmed Fareed (and Sean Casey) started talking at the end of the clips, they showed the standings and Fareed said "The Nationals are 5 games up on the Braves.  I don't know why Davey Johnson was so upset..." then they started talking about the Dodgers.

David Schoenfield mentioned it in passing in a blog post at espn.com in the context of talking about the Dodgers.

If you live outside the Washington area, you might have no idea what happened in this game...unless you follow the Dodgers.