Rankings Are For Show, Results Are For Dough

[DOUGHBOYS]

We all love rankings.
Sometimes we believe in them a little too much. We'll even tier them and think that one player belongs with a group within those rankings. The bad thing is that no matter if you're me, a worse player, a better player, or a pig farmer in Idaho, those rankings will be wrong.
Our rankings are our perception of how the future will unfold. I dare say nobody had Wilin Rosario near the top of their catcher rankings last year. Same with Encarnacion at 1st, Hill at 2nd, Headley at 3rd, or Desmond at shortstop.
All rankings do have one thing in common. They'll all be wrong.

he press have become very predictable over the years. A story will break, like about this Petraeus character, and you can bet your bottom dollar that every story possible will be written to pile on. It's like a competition among their own peers. And predictably again, when the teeter totter of stories has gone all the way to the ground, they'll start on the other side to more even things out.

The same thing is happening in baseball. Jeffrey Loria has been branded as the Petraeus of the Marlins. No matter what happens for the next week or two, Loria is a villian. We know he's a jerk and probably not good for baseball. The press is looking to emboss that thought 10 times over.
They forget that we have our own minds. We can smell poop stinking. We don't have to be told.
Now, writers are poo pooing the prospects that the Marlins got in their trade. They say that the Marlins ONLY got Toronto's number three and five ranked prospects.
They say this with the conviction that their one and two prospects would have been a lot better. Number one and two are not Mike Trout or Bryce Harper, or even Dylan Bundy. Last year, Trevor Bauer was a 'can't miss' kid. He missed.
He still could turn out to be something, but it shows us that just one or two starts at the Major League level can torpedo a kids rankings.

Mike Montgomery was another 'can't miss' kid and this was a couple of years ago. He's still missing and he played with a better team in Omaha than he will with Kansas City when/if he finally makes the show.
Rankings are for show.Results are for dough.
The press does not share that thought. Last year, Mike Trout was third on some prospect lists, behind Matt Moore and Bryce Harper.
How'd that work out?
Do we even know what the final goal of these rankings are?
Is it best MLB career? Best season? First to be great?
These rankings are crazy whether they come from Baseball America or 'Minor League Mike' who lives in his Mom's basement but has attended many a game. Like our rankings, they're never right.

The press is choosing to minimize these prospects in an attempt to minimize Loria.
We get it.
Loria stinks and so does his new prospects.
At least, until they don't.
You see,If these prospects flourish and put the Marlins in contention in a few years, a funny thing happens.
Loria becomes not somebody to be hung, but a genius.
How did he know that Marisnick would be better than D'Arnaud?
Wow!
Brilliant!
Bravo!
And the circle goes unbroken.

The press loves rankings. They're never wrong till the future comes.
The future kicks current rankings in the ass. Every time.
What they don't know is how Miami scouts ranked Toronto's prospects.
And if proved right in the future, that is when the press calls them 'genius'.
It's not genius.
It's not that Miami's scouts rankings were better than Baseball America's list.
It's just the press forgetting.
Rankings are for show, results are for dough.

[DOUGHBOYS]

Just one post script about Jeffrey Loria and the press-

Can you imagine the belly laughs he had when it was intimated through the press that the Marlins were interested in ARod and his big contract?
He probably chuckled for days.
So far, I have not seen one item about how the press got that one SOOO wrong.
And, probably never will.
As self-righteous as they are about Loria, they're self- wrongnesses (shuddup spellchecker, I'm trying to make a point, I know there is no such word as wrongenesses) is lost along the way.