How well each general manager did his job during 2018: Places 20-11
A baseball general manager’s job is to improve his team. But that doesn’t always happen.
This continues a three-part series assessing how well each general manager did during the 2018 season. The ratings are based on the total number of Wins Above Average generate by each player brought to the major league roster either by trade, purchase, free agency, waiver claim, or promotion from the minor league. It also factors in the value – again measured by Wins Above Average – of each player lost to the team due to sale, waiver or free agency.
Wins Above Average is a variant of Wins Above Replacement, the principal difference being that while Wins Above Replacement measures a player against the baseline established for a minor league replacement, Wins Above Average uses the average of all major league players as its baseline.
Because the Cincinnati Reds changed general managers during the season, there are 31 general managers evaluated for their performance during the 2018 season.
At the outset, it is worth acknowledging that not every general manager’s goal is to win immediately. That means some GMs whose goal was long-term restructuring may actually assess themselves as having accomplished what they intended – by moving costly stars for upcoming prospects — even if the result was a talent drain during 2018.
This measurement rates GMs only for the extent to which they improved or damaged their team’s performance during the 2018 season.
This segment rates the mid-pack of GM performance, those between No. 20 and No. 11. It includes the GMs of three post-season teams as well as the only general manager whose moves actually maneuvered his ballclub out of the playoffs, a very bad thing to do, indeed.