2019 MLB Season: Rating the AL Central general managers

2019 MLB Season: The AL Central’s best GM

Mike Chernoff (Chris Antonetti), Cleveland Indians

Chernoff (and his boss, team president Chris Antonetti) faced a major challenge entering the 2019 MLB season, continuing Cleveland’s recent dominance of the AL Central in the face of accelerating budget issues. They nearly pulled it off, the Indians staying in contention for post-season play until the final weekend.

As it was, the Indians won 93 games, a total that would have guaranteed them a post-season berth any year since 2011 except this one. In fact, Cleveland won the AL Central last season with two fewer victories than the Indians achieved this year.

In the end, Chernoff’s report card showed a largely uneventful performance that had little measurable impact on his team’s success. Cleveland’s fate may have been influenced more by ace pitcher Cory Kluber’s injury, or by his poor performance when healthy, than by anything the front office did.

The most notable thing the front office did was trade frontline starter Trevor Bauer to Cincinnati in July in the hope of jolting the team’s offense to life. In exchange for Bauer, the Indians got Yasiel Puig from the Reds and Franmil Reyes from San Diego.

Puig brought a .297 average but only two home runs and a -0.2 WAA to Cleveland. Reyes, a 23-year-old outfielder with some believe star potential, was a short-term flop, batting just .237 with a -0.6 WAA. Given Bauer’s equally lackluster showing in his new Reds uniform, it would be a stretch to argue that the deal backfired on the Indians…but it is no stretch to contend that it failed to live up to the short-term hype.

When teams resort to budget reductions as the Indians did during the 2019 MLB season, it generally means they must rely on farm system talent to gain, or maintain, pennant race altitude. Chernoff (and Antonetti) promoted nine first-year players to the major league club, among whom Aaron Civale stood out. In 10 stretch run starts, Civale went 3-4 with a 2.34 ERA good for a +1.1 WAA.

But that was about it. The group as a whole netted the team just +0.7 WAA, which means everybody other than Civale had a net negative impact. Beyond that, Chernoff and Antonetti may have shipped off their best asset, selling minor leaguer Asher Wojciechowski to Baltimore in July. With the Orioles, Wojciechowski went 4-8 with a 4.92 ERA, but generated 0.6 WAA.

The synoptic assessment of Chernoff’s season is, in a word, ordinary. Nothing he did hurt Cleveland’s pennant prospects, but nothing he did helped those prospects either.

Short-term acquisitions: -0.3

Short-term trade losses: +0.6

Short-term free agent signings: -0.2

Short-term free agent losses: +0.2

Short-term rookie production: +0.7

Short-term total: +1.0