How important is a great farm system?

This might be viewed as a continuation of my last post explaining why I never got on board with John Coppolella as a general manager, but it's also more than that.
With Coppy and among the Atlanta Braves' fan base, there seems to be an obsession with farm system rankings. For fans of such a franchise, I can see the appeal to this focus. Since the organization is rebuilding, the major league team stinks, so why not focus on the minor league talent?
And while this post isn't a criticism of that focus, it does seek to address how much value farm rankings actually have.
So I used Baseball America's annual Organization Talent Rankings to see how often high-ranking farm systems linked with future championships. The results were interesting.
From 2005 to 2015, 25 total teams had farm systems that ranked in the "top 5" farm systems at some point. From that group of 25, just four teams managed to win a World Series at any point after reaching that point of the rankings - the Red Sox, Cubs, Giants and Royals. Of those, only two - the Cubs and the Royals - won a World Series after having the best farm system in baseball, a distinction the Braves reached last season.
Now you may have noticed the same thing I noticed, though. While that ratio of World Series success to farm system ranking is pretty low, those four teams have accounted for seven of the 12 World Series titles in that time. That would suggest that if you can really master the farm system building, you can have consistent success.
As true as that could be, let's look at the other end of the spectrum. In all, 23 teams have found themselves in the "bottom 5" of the list in that same time period. Of those, three teams - the Cardinals, Giants (again) and Cubs (again) have won World Series rings after hitting the basement region to account for six of the 12 rings. The Cardinals managed to win a World Series both after hitting the "bottom 5" AND after having the worst farm system in baseball in 2005.
In fact, let's take a minute to look at the Cardinals. Now, I know a lot of Braves fans have a particular distaste for this franchise, but few could question their success at the major league level.
In fact, St. Louis has been perhaps the modern prototype for consistent success. From 2000 through 2017, the Cardinals have had just one losing season. They've won two World Series titles in that time, been to the World Series two more times and won their division 10 times.
Yet, when you look at the farm system rankings from 2001 through the Cardinals' most recent World Series championship in 2011, their best ranking was eighth. Beyond that, their farm system was ranked in the "bottom 5" a total of five times over that stretch.
The Cardinals did manage to make it to the top of the ranking in 2013 and made the World Series that year, for full disclosure.
But what does all that mean? For me, it means that it is absolutely possible to turn a great farm system into a great MLB team. But it's also absolutely possible to build a great MLB team without having a high-ranking farm system, and there's also success to be found in between.
It's how that talent is developed, identified and utilized that matters, and it should mean that if the Braves need to make moves that bring greater balance to the system but perhaps hurt talent rankings, they should pull the trigger.

A message from the "other" Braves fans

It occurred to me that some Braves fans might not realize that there was another group of fans out there.
You see, while some of you seemingly celebrated every move that John Coppolella made, there were those of us who never fully bought in. For us, the last week or two have been a different - and perhaps even more frustrating - experience that what you've had.
For me, it wasn't always that I necessarily distrusted Coppy specifically. It was the nature of what trust means to me as a sports fan and former sports writer. I need to see proof.
In that vein, Coppy had never been part of a rebuild and had never been a general manager before. There were no "receipts" to show that he knew how to tear down an experienced but unsuccessful franchise and turn it into a championship organization. While he quickly showed that he knew how to tear down, we had not seen that he knew how to build up. In that regard, my decision not to simply "trust the process" wasn't one to distrust Coppy, but I simply needed to see proof that he could finish the job.
We, of course, never got that proof.
That's not to say that I didn't have specific reasons not to trust Coppolella. In my mind, he always displayed a desire to be seen as the "smartest guy in the room," capable of making moves others couldn't make. Sometimes that worked out great, like when he turned a year of Shelby Miller into Dansby Swanson, Ender Inciarte and Aaron Blair. Those are the deals that made us tweet irrational things about Coppy being some sort of deity or horned farm animal.
But there were other deals that some fans just trusted would pan out, that people like me never liked. Sending away Andrelton Simmons was always stupid because he was always trending to be better in every facet of the game than Ozzie Smith. Yes, even defensively. If you say no one saw Simba's improvement at the plate coming, that's false. Some of us knew from the moment that trade happened that it was a bad idea, and even if Sean Newcomb is the second coming of Kershaw, he'll only pitch every fifth day.
That wasn't the only deal, of course. There were plenty others, like the one that sent Alex Wood to Los Angeles for Hector Olivera. Others are really too small to mention, but they felt like "trading for trading's sake" and did very little to make the team better. Again, not all of his trades were bad, but I always wondered if Coppy just liked making trades and moving players around like a fantasy GM.
Of course, we'll never know what the next steps would've looked like, and that's the real point of this rambling.
John Coppolella is out of the Braves' organization because he got caught flaunting the rules that others worked around. By accounts we've read, he was a miserable person to work with, and other GMs and even agents had perhaps decided they wouldn't deal with him anymore. Maybe this is why, even as veterans like Brandon Phillips, Matt Adams and Jaime Garcia played better than could've been expected, Coppy was unable to move them for anything substantial.
At the time, fans like me were told to trust that Coppy got the best deals that were available, but do we know that now? Or were other teams simply tired of dealing with him, and he was left to take what little he could get?
So now, fans like me are left in a different position.
We sat through all those deals we hated, all the necessary losing that felt worse than it really needed to be due to guys like Simba not being on the roster. We put up with deals we didn't understand because other fans said "trust the process" and talked down to us if we disagreed.
And what did we get in the end?
Another rebuild.
Because that's where we are, folks. The odds of a new GM wanting to continue what Coppy started, or even being able to continue what Coppy started without incurring further violations, are pretty low. Sure, the pieces are there, but so is a manager that probably would've been let go if not for the front office turmoil.
So excuse fans like me if we're a little saltier than usual and aren't willing to just "trust the process" as the same front office that botched reining in Coppy finds a new GM. At least for me, I need to see it play out first.

Just answer the question...

By now, everyone knows Marshawn Lynch doesn't like talking to the media.
He's made that perfectly clear.
And if it weren't for the fact that talking to reporters is part of being a professional athlete, that would be OK. But it is part of being a professional athlete.
Now a lot of fans who have never been a member of the media will say, "Aw, it doesn't matter. Just let him play the game."
They might even say, "Look, we don't care what he has to say. I just want to see him run the ball."
As a generality, that's false.
I get a report every day in my email listing the top stories on the Telegraph's website, meaning the stories that were visited the most times from various platforms. Some Georgia football story is almost always in the top 15, regardless of the fact that it's been a month since the Dawgs' last game and two months since the last game with real significance that even approaches the same ZIP code of Super Bowl magnitude. It'll be seven months until UGA takes the field again.
So that's an awful lot of people reading stories full of people answering reporters' questions. No game coverage, no previews for actual events.
All that aside, even if Lynch just really doesn't like talking to the media, we all have parts of our jobs we don't like. Nobody sits in high school dreaming of the day they can sit in staff meetings, listening to reports about ad revenue.
(Can't take credit for that thought. I heard it from a caller on the Rich Eisen Show.)
And the same is true of the reporters asking questions at events like Media Day. Sports reporting was something that I really loved doing, but it wasn't because of news conferences. There isn't a whole lot to enjoy about rushing to find a spot among a host of other reporters just to get the same quotes from the same people that every other reporter has.
No, people become sports reporters so they can cover exciting games, get interesting personal interviews and write interesting features. Covering press conferences is just part of the job.
The difference is, the rest of us don't get paid seven-figure salaries in the process, and we can't tell our bosses, "You know why I'm here," and skip the afternoon meeting.
So for our sake, just answer the questions.

College Playoffs Already Teaching Lessons

I think we all knew we'd learn something from the first year of the college football playoff.

And we have already.

- After the semifinals, we learned that, as many people conjectured, this Florida State team had remained undefeated without being the best team in the country. Oregon showed us that.

- We also learned that the SEC West wasn't, in fact, a league of juggernauts waiting to unleash punishment on foes from other conferences. That lesson came from five matchups pitting the top five teams from the SEC West against members of the B1G, ACC, Big 12 and a mediocre Notre Dame team.

- Finally, and perhaps most importantly, we learned just how flawed the old system was and just how necessary a playoff really is. And that we learned from Ohio State.

When I say "old system," I'm lumping the BCS in with earlier eras. If we really wanted a true national champion, how many times did we miss that because of an inexplicable loss earlier in the season like Ohio State's home defeat against Virginia Tech?

In fact, in any previous system, few people would have cared that Ohio State was left out of the title game. Oregon would've been regarded as a snub. TCU would've had a complaint, as would Baylor. But the Buckeyes? They lost to a mediocre to bad ACC team at home; they wouldn't get any sympathy.

Yet in this new age, Ohio State won the B1G and then went into Bama's playground and beat the SEC champions.

So now we, myself included, have realized that we must think about teams differently now that we have the chance. If the top four teams in the country, and hopefully eight someday soon, are going to play for the championship, we need to stop pretending we know how to pick those four teams with our eyes and our logic.

The takeaway from this is that there needs to be that eight-team bracket some of us are clamoring for. There need to be automatic spots for the power five champions, because TCU also showed us that Ohio State might not be the only team from outside the SEC that could've taken down the Crimson Tide. The Horned Frogs thrashed the very Ole Miss team that handed Bama its only regular season loss.

My pick out of the Big 12 would've been Baylor, but for an eight-team bracket, both would've made it, and that would be OK, even though the Bears couldn't hold of Michigan State.

If we must have a committee or a poll get involved, have it select three at-larges to go with the power five champions. But there's a reason that every other major team sport has guaranteed spots for regular-season accomplishments. 

Because it works, and Ohio State gave us a glimpse of that.

#FreeGeorgiaSouthern

There are a lot of people who have a lot of problems with the way the NCAA operates.
I'm not that guy, usually.
Big things like eligibility rules, paying athletes, disciplinary measures -- every once in a while I'll disagree, but I'm not anti-NCAA, in general.
The rules that exist for little or no reason, though, those bother me, and Georgia Southern is taking the brunt of one right now.
Please understand: I grew up hating Georgia Southern. My dad went to Furman, and Georgia Southern took on full "evil empire" status after Marshall left the Southern Conference. There is no bias here.
Yet I can't help but defend the Eagles this time.
I fully understand why the Eagles would be ineligible for the FCS playoffs in their final year at that level. That makes complete sense because, otherwise, they'd be hauling in FBS-level players and likely walk to a title that year.
But once they get to the FBS level, why prevent them from playing in a bowl?
I get that when Marshall transitioned, they rolled through their first year at the FBS level. But it's not like we're talking about a national championship bid here. We're talking about a spot in an exhibition game.
No first-year team at that level will be able to do enough to get into the national title picture. And even if they do, as long as they're following the same rules everyone else is pretending to follow, why leave them out?
For the rest of the bowls, those should be about rewarding teams for a good year. Georgia Southern finished the year 9-3 with an 8-0 mark in the Sun Belt in their first year at that level. That is worthy of reward. The Eagles lost by less than a touchdown to two bowl-participating ACC teams, one of which, Georgia Tech, is playing in the Orange Bowl. That is worthy of reward.
Meanwhile, South Alabama went 6-6 out of the same conference and will play in a bowl. Arkansas State and Louisiana-Lafayette also finished behind the Eagles in conference play and will also play in a bowl.
But the champion of that same conference? Nope, they're staying at home.
I also counted 11 major conference teams that finished the year 6-6, whose fan bases might not even be that excited about bowl destinations, who all got bowls. The Eagle fanbase would've been thrilled to play in the Independence Bowl, but no, that bid goes to South Carolina and Miami.
South Carolina had sold 700 of its allotment of 8,000 tickets, at last check.
But in the end, my main point is this: Why does the NCAA care who plays in these games?

Playoff Problems

OK, first of all, I love the idea of the college football playoff.

Ideally, I want to see an eight-team bracket with five guaranteed spots for conference champions, but I'll take what I can get.

I even liked the concept of a committee made of people with various connections to the sport. It seems like a refreshing change from the Frankenstein-like effort the BCS made to slam together human polls and computer formulas.

Yet, just five days before the final ranking comes out that will set the first four-team field for a college football playoff, I don't like the direction they're headed.

For reference, the committee's most recent top four are Alabama, Oregon, TCU and Florida State, in that order.

To outline my complaints, I'll use my own ranking. I vote every week at www.cfbfanpoll.com, which I would recommend to anyone who is as big of a sports nerd as I am.

Here we go: 

1. Florida State 

Do I really think the Seminoles are definitely the best team in college football? No. Am I largely a lazy person who likes easy decisions? Abso-frickin'-lutely. 

But it's more than just that. I start the year with last year's champion as No. 1 with an end goal in mind. If last year's champion goes undefeated, I want to make sure they get a shot at the title. The only way to guarantee that is by leaving them No. 1 until they lose. 

We're already seeing the slide that can happen when you rank them below that, and I'm not convinced that slide will stop. If Baylor beats the absolute tar out of Kansas State this week, why wouldn't they claim a spot near TCU, a team the Bears already beat (I'll get to that later)? And you certainly can't drop any of the top three teams if they all win.

Not to mention, the Seminoles are the only undefeated major-college football team. Also, as one Ric Flair once said, "To be the man, you gotta beat the man."

Also, "WOOOOOO."

2. Alabama

Essentially since the Tide lost to Ole Miss, they've looked like the best team in the country. I don't deny that.

But to further drive home the FSU point, they're the only team that doesn't have a "since," "other than" or "besides" on their resume. And Alabama's comes at the hands of a Rebel team that has since lost to a mediocre LSU team, Auburn and 6-6 Arkansas. By a 30-0 margin. 

That is not a good loss for Bama, no matter how you paint it, when compared to an undefeated defending champion.

3. Oregon

The Ducks' loss to Arizona was not a bad one, but it still came at home. 

Oregon's quarterback, Marcus Mariota, also happens to be the best player whose ACL is still operational - looking at you, Todd Gurley - and that matters. Especially considering the Ducks have a shot to avenge that loss this week, they might have the most ironclad resume with a win.

4. Baylor

I can't comprehend how TCU could still be considered the choice out of the Big 12ish. I get that comparing Ohio State, Baylor and Oregon might be complicated. The three don't play each other, and usually don't have solid common opponents. 

But Oregon and TCU played each other in a conference matchup, and Baylor won. Yes, it was by three points at home, but it's still a W.

It's almost like college football has relied so long on formulas, voting and guesswork that it forgot the basic unit of sports measurement: head-to-head results.

What I'm hoping is that the committee is giving us a "right now" look at their process. I'm hoping that they'll make sure FSU stays in if it wins the ACC with an unbeaten record. I'm hoping that they'll take Baylor, the team that won on the field.

But I'm concerned it won't be that simple.

Time to Recover

Brief introduction: I used to be a sportswriter, but now I cover education.
Basically, I needed to find a career that would allow me more time with my family during normal hours. As much as I loved covering sports - and I did love it - that path was never going to afford me the chance to be the type of father I want to be.
There are plenty of guys who find a way to strike that balance, and more power to them. I just didn't see it happening for me, especially once Ray reaches school age.
So here I am, a sports nut covering school board meetings and learning about enrollment figures and graduation rates. It's a different type of challenge that I'm enjoying so far, but it also leaves me with nowhere to write about sports.
So that's where this blog comes in.
And it's a good thing, too, because this was a big week for my Atlanta Braves.
The Jason Heyward trade gave me mixed feelings. I love watching JHey play the game, and I really respected the way he kept fighting at the end of the abysmal 2014 year.
I'm not going to say outright that anyone quit on that team, but I will say I saw a difference in Heyward's fire and attack on offense compared to the others.
That said, I would've been more concerned if the Braves had tossed him the type of contract his representatives would want. Put his actual production with any name on the Braves roster except maybe Freddie Freeman and Andrelton Simmons, and fans likely don't care that he's gone.
I guess that's the part of me that has the most to recover: being a fan.
Even though I didn't actively cover the Braves or any other team of national interest, I've slowly begun to approach some situations like an unbiased member of the media instead of a fan.
I kind of want to be upset when a player I like gets traded. I have a Jason Heyward shirsey (T-shirt jersey), for crying out loud! Instead, I'm all "look at the production, value and blah blah blah."
Now, I am a proud member of the "Fire Fredi Gonzalez Club," but even that took more time than a lot of Braves fans. I was too busy looking at all the angles.
Not now. Now I'm just a fan.