ESPN Ranks Yankees 7th in Future Power Rankings

The MLB playoffs ended last week as the San Francisco Giants won their 3rd World Series in the last 5 years. The hot stove is beginning to heat up with trade rumors, qualifying offers, and free agent signings tiding the baseball world over until pitchers and catchers report to Spring Training. ESPN’s panel of Jim Bowden, Keith Law, and Buster Olney took stock of each organization’s future outlook (insider only) as of October 31st (this updated a similar comprehensive study performed in March of 2014) to see where teams stand heading into the off-season. 

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They plan to update this list again in the spring of 2015 after the bevy of trades and free agent signings further alter each organization. As stated in the article, there were 5 different categories that comprised the total score for each franchise. The first 2 categories, the quality of the Majors and Minors, received the full weight of the voting. Finances, how much money teams could spend to acquire talent, received a 2/3 weighting. Management included the front office, ownership, and on-field staff and was given a 2/3 weighting. Finally, Mobility received a 1/3 rating and considered whether or not the team had a lot of young pre-arb and arb players or older guys on long term contracts. The scores were an average rating based on the input of the three ESPN experts so the maximum a team could receive for a pre-weighted category was 30. Also, Olney gives a general overview of each franchise, Bowden highlights roster problems or needs, and Law notes a key prospect.

The Yankees ranked 7th with an overall score of 60.5 out of 100 based on this methodology. This represents the second best score in the American League and the AL East (behind only the Red Sox) and an improvement from a previous score of 51.6. The improvement is almost entirely due to a bump for the minors portion (emergence of Aaron Judge, Luis Severino, and Rob Refsnyder, among others) as Majors (no shortstop, injury risks across the starting rotation, and several good players such as Brandon McCarthy and Chase Headley currently free agents) and Mobility (old roster entrenched on long term contracts getting a year older) depreciated a bit.

Management improved slightly, which is likely due to some turnover in the scouting department or the loss of Kevin Long was seen as a positive even though the replacement is still undetermined. Finances were static. The raw numbers for this edition of the ranking were Majors:15 Minors:15 Finances:29 Management:19 Mobility:16. Olney notes that the Yankees can just use their financial ability to remain competitive and overcome mistakes. He also notes that the minor league system is improving. This hasn’t been the case since the late 90s but is essential to getting the Yankees back to legit contender status. B

owden throws out some names to plug the hole at shortstop left by the recently retired Derek Jeter. These are both free agents (Hanley Ramirez and Jed Lowrie) and trade targets (Alexei Ramirez, Brad Miller, and Starlin Castro). Finally, Law profiles Luis Severino as a breakout prospect with “a loose arm and very good change-up, but he needs to use his lower half more to profile as a starter.”

Overall, the Yankees are a franchise in transition after the departure of the final member of the Core 4 plus Bernie. They will always be relevant because of their ability to run $200+ million payrolls and the general strengths of management in the dugout and front office. The minor league system is starting to come around, but most of the high ceiling guys are still a few years away despite there being several holes on the major league roster right now.

This means the Yankees’ likely path to not missing the playoffs for a third consecutive year is to spend big money (again) in free agency. This is still a top 10 organization as ESPN shows and it will be interesting to see if they can enter the top 5 after an off-season that figures to be active and interesting.