Rebuilding an Organization

I read an interesting article Rany Jazayerli of BaseballProspectus.com wrote for SI.com. The article, posted on August 8, 2006, was an in-depth look at how the Detroit Tigers roster was built. After years of losing, the Tigers emerged in 2006 and made it all the way to the World Series before losing to the St. Louis Cardinals. I am posting an excerpt from the article that Jazayerli wrote that I particularly appreciated.

And finally, unquestionably the most important lesson to be learned from the 2006 Tigers is this:

When it comes to building a championship team, there is simply no substitute for good scouting.

This may seem like a pretty basic point, but it's not. While we've gone to great lengths to destroy the notion that the scouts vs. stats debate is anything like an either/or proposition (beer and tacos, remember), it would be silly to deny that different teams emphasize each data set differently, and that on the extremes there are teams that emphasize one almost to the exclusion of the other.

It is an interesting article that is certainly worth the read. The article in its entirety can be found by going to: http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2006/baseball/mlb/08/08/extra.mustard/index.html