New Look Organizational Rankings

For the last two years, I've put together Organizational Rankings posts (they were linked on the right side of the page, but my messing around has temporarily removed them). Unfortunately, this year I never got around to getting the relief pitcher post up (if you're clever, you can get to the page that has about 1/4 of the players listed, but I never activated the link because it was never completed). Equally unfortunately, the idea suffered from my inability to determine exactly what information I wanted to convey on the pages. On the one hand, the lists have been put together in the order of my rankings -- which is great if you want to see who I valued going into each season. At the same time, however, I've been trying to use those pages as a player transactions database. While there is a LOT of information on the players in the organization available on the web, some basic information is widely scattered and requires some actual digging to get at.

I legitimately want to service both of the goals mentioned above -- I enjoy ranking players, but at the same time I think its nice to be able to go to one site to see transaction information, rather than trying to track it down from multiple sources. As a result, I've decided to change the way that I present the information.

First up, in January I will be unveiling my new "Organizational Database." No, it will not be a true database. It will not be searchable in the way a true database is -- it'll just be like one of my long "Organizational Rankings" posts, but it will be organized by last name rather than by my rankings so that it will be significantly easier to find the player you're looking for. No more guessing whether Nick Punto is listed as a 2B, SS, or 3B if you want to see info on him. More than likely, I'll put the data into 4 or 5 separate posts broken down in some fashion like "A-E, F-K," and so on.

Here's the kicker: my goal is to keep the Database as up-to-date as possible. I will include a link to a page (probably The Baseball Cube) where you can easily see historical stats. I will include all the basic vital information. Most importantly, however, I'm going to do my absolute best to give you information like what year the player will become Rule 5 eligible, how many options years the player has used, and so on. I will also make an effort to regularly update all transactions for all players at the Rookie League level and above. This is all information that I keep track of anyway, but other than a half-hearted effort to track transactions I generally haven't made it available on the site. I might as well try, and see if anyone finds it useful.

As for the Organizational Rankings, they will survive in a different format. Starting in early February I will begin putting out the rankings using some of the same rules as I've used in the past, such as deciding which one position a player belongs in and not changing the rankings during the year. The posts will be much more in the nature of a simple list than they have previously been, however, and more than likely will include only a paragraph or two of explanation at the bottom to give some insight into why I ranked Player A higher than Player B, and so on.

I sincerely hope that once I get these two projects up and running that those of you who visit this site will find them to be useful. In any case, they should be much more user-friendly (and informative) than they have been in the past.