2019 MLB Season: The NL West’s best GM
Andrew Friedman, Los Angeles Dodgers
Friedman built the Rays into a contender during his tenure there starting in 2006. With the Dodgers, he adopted a measured approach befitting the team’s status as two-time defending National League champions.
Friedman incorporated a relatively modest 23 new or re-signed faces into the 2019 team, several of them rookies (such as Alex Verdugo and Caleb Ferguson) who had had brief prior experience. The most significant, though, were very familiar hands. Clayton Kershaw re-upped for three more seasons at $31 million each, and Hyun-Jin Ryu looked briefly at free agency, then re-signed with the Dodgers for $17.9 million.
Together they provided 5.7 WAA, and Ryu – at 14-5 and a league-leading 2.32 ERA – might win the Cy Young Award.
Verdugo and catcher Will Smith came up and also delivered WAAs in excess of 1.0, allowing the Dodger rookie class as a group to net +1.5, the fourth-best rookie performance in MLB.
Were one to try to find fault with Friedman’s approach, it would probably involve his trade acquisitions, which as a group were uninspired. There were four, the most impactful being substitute infielder Jed Gyorko…and his impact was -0.5 WAA. At the same time, such was the Dodger talent base that none of those four played more than filler roles.
Overall, only Atlanta’s Alex Anthopoulos and Minnesota’s Thad Levine had better front office seasons than Friedman’s Dodger operation.
Short-term acquisitions: -0.6
Short-term trade losses: +2.7
Short-term free agent signings: +4.6
Short-term free agent losses: +1.2
Short-term rookie production: +1.5
Short-term total: +9.4