Among AL West GMs, Houston Astros Jeff Luhnow rules

Rating the division’s general managers for their 2019 performance

With each passing season, the role of front offices generally – and general managers in particular – grows in significance. The recent departures of such veteran field managers as Joe Maddon and Clint Hurdle should provide fresh evidence of that for any still requiring such evidence.

Front offices are assuming increasing roles in the determination of game strategy. Yet by far their most important role remains what it has always been: the accumulation of talent. Anybody who has ever hired or fired an employee – or helped set salary levels – understands the vital nature of such decisions.

In the American League West, the five general managers are: Jon Daniels, Texas Rangers, Jerry DiPoto, Seattle Mariners, Bill Eppler, Los Angeles Angels, David Forst (with Billy Beane), Oakland Athletics, and Jeff Luhnow, Houston Astros.

They are the faces of the processes by which their respected clubs were assembled.

To what degree did each man – and each front office he directs – improve his team during the 2019 season?

The method of evaluating the answer to that question isn’t all that complicated. For every general manager, we’ve assigned a value to all player-related movements occurring since the conclusion of the 2018 season. That value is determined by Wins Above Average, a zero-based variant of Wins Above Replacement.

For each GM, the calculation considers his positive or negative impact on his team in five respects: players acquired in deals with other teams via trade, purchase or waiver claim; players traded, sold or waived to other teams; players signed at free agency or extended (beyond the normal; beyond the normal period of team control); players released onto the open market; and players who are considered rookies.

For each GM, there is a summary of his performance followed by a brief synopsis of the numerical weight of their performance in each of the five categories, and their total rating. Any rating above 0.0 represents the number of games by which a GM improved his team’s talent base, and any negative rating denotes regression. The average will always be about 0.0.

One important note: These ratings do not always follow the standings. A team may succeed because of its talent base on hand rather than due to what the GM did to that talent base. What we’re measuring here is only the impact of personnel decisions made since the end of the 2018 season.

For purposes of context, the best performance of the 2018 season was +10.2 by Milwaukee’s David Stearns. The worst was -20.5 by Miami’s Mike Hill.

In the order in which the teams finished, here’s how the five AL West GMs rated.

Jeff Luhnow, Houston Astros

Luhnow had the general manager’s dream scenario  during 2019: He took a very good nucleus, and made it measurably better.

Begin with a pair of free agent signings. Virtually alone among general managers, Luhnow saw the latent value in Michael Brantley, an often-injured 32-year-old veteran who enjoyed a bounce-back 2018 with Cleveland. It cost him $32 million over two seasons, but Luhnow got a steady left fielder who batted .311 with 22 home runs, 90 RBIs and a 2.4 WAA. Totally worth it.

In need of a catcher, Luhnow found Robinson Chirinos, a mid-30s refugee from the Rangers who had batted just .222 there in 2018. Chirinos’ comparables with Houston weren’t a lot better, but he still brought a 2.3 WAA, making the $5.75 million it cost to get him a relative steal.

His 14-player rookie class was largely undistinguished, the obvious exception being outfielder Yordan Alvarez. Debuting in June, Alvarez furnished 27 home runs, 78 RBIs and a2.5 WAA that made him a likely Rookie Of the Year winner.

Since Luhnow was dealing from strength (Justin Verlander, Gerrit Cole), it’s perhaps understandable that  he would look askance at the idea of keeping Charlie Morton or Dallas Keuchel or both. Nonetheless, the record marks their losses to the free agent market as the biggest blots on Luhnow’s record.

To partially offset the impact of their departures, he was forced into the trade market in July, acquiring Zack Greinke from Arizona for four prospects who may or may not ever amount to anything.

Short-term acquisitions: +0.7

Short-term trade losses: +3.2

Short-term free agent signings: +5.8

Short-term free agent losses: -3.5

Short-term rookie production: +0.5

Short-term total: +6.7

David Forst (and Billy Beane), Oakland Athletics

With the venerable Beane’s oversight, Forst did improve the Athletics’ talent base, although he did it largely by disposal of bad assets rather than the acquisition of good ones.

The biggest improvement involved the creation of playing time by removal of such ne’er-do-wells as catcher Jonathan Lucroy and pitchers Trevor Cahill and Edwin Jackson. Those three departures alone removed a potential 6.5 game handicap from Oakland’s rotation and catching corps.

Easily Forst’s largest contribution – it may have been the team’s saving grace – was his decision to re-sign free agent Mike Fiers for $8.1 million in December. In the context of the hits Oakland’s rotation took – particularly the PED suspension of Frankie Montas – Fiers’ 15.4 and 3.90 ERA in 33 starts had value beyond the 1.2 WAA it netted.

Rookie classes are generally liabilities, so the fact that Forst picked up a league-leading +1.0 WAA from his callups is also noteworthy. Outfielder Seth Brown debuted in late August but produced a .293 average. Jesus Luzardo didn’t arrive until September but delivered a 1.50 ERA in a half dozen relief appearances.

Short-term acquisitions: -2.6

Short-term trade losses: +1.9

Short-term free agent signings: -0.9

Short-term free agent losses: +6.5

Short-term rookie production: +1.0

Short-term total: +5.9

Jon Daniels, Texas Rangers

The impact of one superb move rescued Jon Daniels’ rating.

In December, Daniels signed Lance Lynn to a three-year, $30 million deal. Across a combined 29 appearances the previous season for the Twins and Yankees, Lynn had managed an ordinary 10-10 record and 4.77 ERA, translating to a -0.5 WAA.

Needless to say, the Lynn signing made few national waves. But it looks a lot more profound today following the veteran right-hander’s delivery of a 16-11 record and 3.67 ERA in 33 starts for Texas.

Lynn produced a 5.7 WAA for the Rangers, far and away the most impactful season of his eight-year career.

It was also virtually the only constructive step Daniels took to impact the 2019 team. The other 39 players – yes, 39 – imported by Daniels either by trade, sale, waiver claim, free agency or callup – netted -7.9 games of WAA to the cause. Only one-third of them generated positive value, none greater than the +0.6 produced by Danny Santana and Hunter Pence.

Robinson Chirinos left Texas for Houston, where he produced a +2.3 WAA for the champion Astros. Daniels replaced Chirinos with veteran Jeff Mathis, who is known for his defense. But Mathis batted just .158 and generated -2.4 WAA. From Chirinos to Mathis is a 4.7 game negative swing at that one position.

Short-term acquisitions: -3.0

Short-term trade losses: 0.0

Short-term free agent signings: +1.1

Short-term free agent losses: -2.0

Short-term rookie production: -0.3

Short-term total: -4.2

Jerry DiPoto, Seattle Mariners

DiPoto has always been an attention-getter for his willingness to make a deal, and that was certainly the case again last winter. Most visibly, DiPoto shipped two of his highest-profile names, Robinson Cano and closer Edwin Diaz, to the Mets for five players, the best known of whom was veteran Jay Bruce.

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There is a certain value to getting rid of a high-priced, declining value such as Cano along with a soon-to-be-expensive closer. At the same time, it would be nice to get something of value in return. Bruce and reliever Anthony Swarzak, hurt the Mariners to the tune of -0.7 WAA before both were traded away at the deadline. Two other arrivals in the trade – Gerson Bautista and Justin Dunn – debuted and generated -0.4.

That highly publicized trade was, in the short term, a poison pill administered to both sides.

Bautista, Dunn, Swarzak and Bruce were only four of a healthy 23 players DiPoto incorporated into the Mariners mixture via deals with other teams. So he gets credit for churn. But that’s about it. Those 23 cost the Mariners a net of six games; only one, catcher Tom Murphy, turned out to be worth more than six-tenths of a game in the standings. Murphy was acquired from San Francisco around opening day following a career as a backup in Colorado.

Nothing if not energetic, DiPoto signed another 17 players on the open market, notably Edwin Encarnacion and Japanese star Yusei Kikuchi. As the M’s plans collapsed – in part at least because of Kikuchi’s disappointing 6-11, 5.46 season, Encarnacion was shipped to the Yankees for yet another prospect.

Short-term acquisitions: -6.0

Short-term trade losses: +7.0

Short-term free agent signings: -1.1

Short-term free agent losses: -1.8

Short-term rookie production: -1.8

Short-term total: -3.7