2019 MLB Season: Rating the NL West GMs
How the moves made during the 2019 MLB season by the five NL West general managers have influenced their teams’ success, for better or worse.
The NL West may be baseball’s bargain basement division. For the first half of the 2019 MLB season, the most consequential aspect of its collective performance has been a talent drain.
That drain clearly shows up in evaluations of the first-half performances of the division’s five general managers – four, technically since the Los Angeles Dodgers are being run by – multiple choice here – (a) a committee, (b), nobody, (c), Andrew Friedman’s aura.
As measured by Wins Above Average, a zero-based variant of Wins Above Replacement – the sum talent movement for NL West teams since the end of the 2018 season is -6.5 games.
This is the first of a series of six articles through the All-Star break looking at the impacts of general manager moves. Teams will be analyzed on a division-by-division basis. WAA is the preferred method of assessment because it possesses all the statistical advantages of WAR while being pegged to the average performance of a current major league player rather than to a replacement player. That means an average score is, quite conveniently, 0.0 games.
Because teams are judged only on the basis of moves made since the end of the previous season, the assessment won’t necessarily mirror the standings. Some teams – the Dodgers are a classic example of this – are populated principally by players who have been contractually obligated to the team since before the end of 2018, meaning their performances do not figure into this rating.
All we are interested in here is the impact of personnel decisions made since the end of the 2018 season. Still, those decisions could take several forms: acquiring a player by trade or sale, trading or selling a player, signing a free agent, extending a player already on your team to a new contract carrying into his normal free agent years, or allowing a player to leave via free agency.
Use of players who retain rookie status also counts.
From best to worst, here’s how the GMs of the five NL West teams have done to date.
2019 MLB Season: Rating the NL West General Managers
1. Mike Hazen, Arizona Diamondbacks, +4.2 WAA
Hazen played victim in perhaps the most highly publicized trade of the winter, the swap of Paul Goldschmidt to St. Louis in exchange for a couple of prospects. It’s only mid-season, and things certainly could change. But for the present, Hazen comes out the clear winner in that deal.
Luke Weaver, the young pitcher acquired in that deal, has produced a 4-3 record and 3.03 ERA in 11 starts, figures that translate to a +1.0 Wins Above Average (WAA). Catcher Carson Kelly is batt9ong .282 with a .902 OPS in regular duty, generating an additional +1.0 WAA.
Meanwhile St. Louis is waiting for Goldschmidt to unleash himself. His first half has produced a .246 average and a .742 OPS that wouldn’t look good under normal offensive conditions much less than power explosion that has prevailed in 2019. His mid-season WAA is -0.3. In sum, that single deal has so far improved the D-Backs to the tune of 2.3 games.
Hazen let five players go to free agency over the winter, of whom Patrick Corbin’s loss to Washington was the only damaging one. However the departures of A.J. Pollock, Shelby Miller, Chris Owings, Brad Boxberger and Jon Jay have all been blessings in disguise. The net impact of those departures on the Diamondbacks works out to +2.6 WAA.
What Hazen has not done is reap any help to speak of from his farm system. Six rookies have debuted for Arizona this 2019 MLB season, and none has produced a WAA better than +0.1. There net impact is -1.4 games. With some help from that source, the Diamondbacks might be in better position to challenge the Dodgers.
2019 MLB Season: Rating the NL West General Managers
2. Andrew Friedman, Los Angeles Dodgers, +2.6 WAA
The Dodgers are so efficiently run that they don’t need a general manager. They let Farhan Zaidi walk off to San Francisco, and officially are being run by a committee of some makeup.
As a practical matter, that committee consists of team president of baseball operations Andrew Friedman plus whoever he chooses to listen to. So far it’s running smoothly on autopilot.
Friedman — or somebody — did re-sign Clayton Kershaw and Hyun-Jin Ryu – that one worked out – and traded for Russell Martin. But aside from Ryu, the eight other players he either brought in or re-upped have netted an insignificant -0.9 contribution to the Dodger cause, Kershaw and David Freese – at +0.6 apiece – being the best.
For the most part, Friedman has been smart enough to let the pieces left behind by Zaidi work for themselves. Not counting rookies, the 2019 Dodgers feature 21 players working on contracts signed by Zaidi. Those 21 include Cody Bellinger, Walker Buehler, Kenley Jansen, Justin Turner, Max Muncy, — you get the idea. The sum WAA of the 21 to date is +11.2 games. The rookies, among them Alex Verdugo, have layered on an additional +0.6 WAA.
Put another way, if Friedman had let Zaidi walk to the Giants and then merely hibernated, the Dodgers would still have a solid hold on first place today.
That is a functional front office.
2019 MLB Season: Rating the NL West General Managers
3. A.J. Preller, San Diego Padres, -1.0 WAA
Preller got a lot of attention prior to the 2019 MLB season when he signed Manny Machado to a 10-year, $300 million-plus deal. On the field, the Padres certainly ‘feel’ better, as witnessed by their 42-40 record and their standing on the fringes of the NL wild card race.
With Machado and rookie Fernando Tatis Jr. patrolling the left side of the infield, they also look better. The raw numbers, however, aren’t entirely convinced.
Other than the +1.4 WAA Machado has brought, Preller has collected seven players via trade or free agency who have contributed to the 2019 Padres, and the sum of their contributions is a perfectly neutral 0.0 WAA.
He’s tried out 14 first-year players, their collective impact being -1.3 WAA. Subtracting Tatis (+2.2) and Chris Paddack (+0.9) makes the collective impact of the remaining dozen -4.2. More consistency from Phil Maton and Nick Margevicious would help.
The Padres lost only one player from their 2018 roster to another 2019 major league team, and that player – Freddy Galvis – isn’t likely to cause much of a stir either way.
In short, the sensory data on the Padres is all good. Machado and Tatis are living up to expectations. What’s missing, to date, is enough of a supporting cast to move the Padres out of neutral.
2019 MLB Season: Rating the NL West General Managers
4. Farhan Zaidi, San Francisco Giants, -4.2 WAA
Zaidi got a lot of attention when he visibly left LA for San Francisco. But if Giant fans hoped he would produce a quick reversal of the team’s fortunes, reality may have since set in. The Giants need a lot of work, and Zaidi has only just begun.
To date, the goings are the more interesting – and uplifting — pieces of the puzzle. From the 2018 Giants roster Zaidi has excised seven players and their collective impact on their new teams is -2.8 WAA. That is excellence in trash removal.
The problem is that Zaidi is working from a weak nucleus. The 2019 Giants feature 18 non-rookies who pre-date Zaidi, and the collective impact of those 18 thus far is -3.6 WAA. It’s not just one guy: Madison Bumgarner is -0.5, Brandon Belt is -0.4, Joe Panik is -1.1, Brandon Crawford is -1.0, Buster Posey is -0.6, and so on.
No returning Giant has produced a WAA better than Pablo Sandoval’s +0.8.
What Zaidi has done to change that picture has generally amounted to thrashing about more or less fruitlessly. The 2019 Giants have played 13 guys acquired by Zaidi in player or cash transactions with other team, plus eight free agent arrivals. The cumulative impact of the 21 is -5.9 games.
A couple, notably Alex Dickerson and Mike Yastrzemski, have shown occasional promise.
2019 MLB Season: Rating the NL West General Managers
5. Jeff Bridich, Colorado Rockies, -8.1 WAA
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Unlike Josh Friedman, head of the team the Rockies chased to the NL West finish last season, Jeff Bridich actually tried to better his team’s standing this past winter. His Rockies might have been better off if Bridich had done as little as Friedman.
Specifically, Bridich drew heavily on Colorado’s farm system, leaning on rookies Raimel Tapia and Garrett Hampson to plug holes in the outfield and at second base. The net impact has been -3.1 games of WAA.
Throw in neutral or negative contributions by four other first-year Rockies of lesser stature and the facts are that Rockie newcomers have undermined their team’s chances by -5.1 WAA at the season’s halfway point.
The re-signing of Nolan Arenado to an eight-year deal was an obvious and productive move. But Bridich’s three other free agent signings have essentially neutralized Arenado’s presence. Daniel Murphy’s sub-par numbers equate to -1.0 WAA. Mark Reynolds is back for another run in Colorado, but this older and slower version has to date yielded only a -1.2 WAA. Pitcher Chi Chi Gonzalez has been a non-factor, which is better than being a negative factor.
Next. Red Sox finally looking to improve bullpen. dark
Bridich might also regret his decision to let D J LeMahieu and Adam Ottavino walk. Both signed with the Yankees, for whom they have netted a combined +3.9 WAA.