2019 MLB Season: Rating the NL West GMs
By Bill Felber
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.