MLB: Rating the front offices of the AL East
Assessing how each team’s front office helped or hurt the club’s profile during the 2020 MLB season.
Every MLB team’s success or failure ultimately rises or falls on the personnel moves made by its front office.
To build a winner, the first pre-requisite is talent, and it’s the job of the front office to acquire that talent.
How good a job did execs of the 30 major league teams do in fulfilling that prime directive during the 2020 season? Over the course of the next week, we’ll assess the 2020 performance of each front office division-by-division and team-by-team.
Our ratings are based on the collective short-term impact, as measured by Wins Above Average, of every personnel move made by every front office since the conclusion of play in 2019. A positive number represents front office success. In a few cases, those marked by an asterisk, the front office really succeeded; it generated a more positive impact than the margin by which the team qualified for post-season play.
If a rating is negative, that means the team’s front office reduced the club’s talent base during 2020. And woe betide a front office that gets an asterisk for negative performance; that means the team’s execs dealt, promoted or signed their way out of the playoffs.
- As a general proposition, MLB front offices influence their team’s performance in five ways:
- By the players they acquire in trades, purchase, or waiver claims with other teams.
- By the players they lose in those deals.
- By the free agents they sign.
- By the players they release or lose to free agency.
- By the rookies they promote.
We begin with the AL East. The teams are ordered not based on final standing, but rather on the extent of the front office’s positive contribution to the team profile.
Tampa Bay Rays
Matt Silverman, president; Erik Neander, senior VP of baseball operations and general manager
+2.8 games
In the Rays’ successful effort to supplant New York atop the AL East standings, the team’s front office certainly did its part. Team execs only made a modest 22 personnel moves since the end of the 2019 season that influenced the course of the club during 2020, of which 13 improved the Rays’ short-term fortunes.
None of those moves was especially profound, but three stood out, all of three to the good. In January the Rays acquired outfielder Randy Arozarena and veteran Jose Martinez from St. Louis in exchange for a couple of minor leaguers. Martinez did little and was dealt away, but Arozarena batted .281 with a 1.022 OPS in 23 games. That translated to a +0.6 Wins Above Average.
One month later the Rays signed lightly regarded free agent pitcher John Curtiss to supplement their highly regarded staff. Like Arozarena, Curtiss was hardly a revelation, but he did go 3-0 with a 1.80 ERA in 17 appearances. That added another +0.6 WAA to the team’s profile.
A mostly veteran cast, the Rays added only one rookie of note in 2020, that being pitcher Josh Fleming. But he went 5-0 with a 2.78 ERA in his seven appearances, contributing a final +0.6 WAA.
The cumulative impact of the front office’s labors in 2020 was to raise the Rays’ profile by 2.8 games. That doesn’t sound like a lot, but in a 60-game MLB season it was among the best performances by any major league front office.
The annual short-term performance rating of the Rays front office since Neander was appointed GM prior to the 2017 season:
Season Games
2017: – 0.6
2018: +5.8
2019: +8.5*
2020: +2.8
*This was a greater improvement than the margin by which the Rays qualified for post-season play.
Baltimore Orioles
Mike Elias, senior vice president and general manager
+2.7 games
Elias just completed his second season in charge of Orioles operations. Although the team faded badly down the stretch, it was – from a talent-building standpoint – a successful season.
In his ongoing effort to reshape the Orioles into an AL East contender, Elias made 30 personnel moves since the conclusion of the 2019 season that impacted the team’s 2020 fortunes. Fourteen of those 30 created positive short-term impact, while seven others were neutral impact moves.
The most important thing a relatively new GM often does is take out the garbage, and that was Elias’ most impactful chore in 2020. Elias projected pitcher Dylan Bundy to have little role in Baltimore’s plans, at least by comparison with the value he could bring in a trade, so he shipped Bundy to the Los Angeles Angels for four minor leaguers.
None of the four players Elias obtained saw MLB service in 2020, but the loss of Bundy did cost Baltimore’s profile 1.2 WAA in the short-term. He was 6-3 with a 3.29 ERA for his new team.
The rookies Elias promoted this season were promising. There were eight of them, led by Ryan Mountcastle, Austin Hays, and Dean Kremer, and they netted a collective 1.5 WAA. Rookies almost always hurt a team’s rating, so netting +1.5 from them is a positive sign.
The annual short-term performance rating of Elias’s front office since he became general manager in 2019:
Season Games
2019: -7.0
2020: +2.7
New York Yankees
Brian Cashman, senior vice president and general manager
+2.0 games
Cashman is the dean of MLB executives, having run Yankee front office operations since the 1998 season. That tenure includes 19 playoff appearances and four World Series titles, although none since 2009.
In an effort to end that World Series drought, Cashman’s front office made two dozen personnel moves affecting the team’s 2020 fortunes. The most headline-grabbing, most costly, and also the most influential obviously was the signing of free agent pitcher Gerrit Cole to a $324 million deal that extends through 2028.
Whether Cole was worth the pro-rated portion of the $36 million annually that the Yankees paid for him is a matter for CPAs to decide. But his 7-3 record and 2.83 ERA in a dozen starts did amount to a 1.5 game Wins Above Average contribution.
It’s also well to keep in mind that, from a pure money perspective, Cole’s 2020 value is not yet fully assessed. His most important contribution will be his ability, or lack of same, to lead the Yankees to that coveted World Series title the franchise has lacked for a decade now.
His victory in the playoff opener against Cleveland Tuesday night was a plus in that regard.
The annual short-term performance rating of Cashman’s front office for each of the past five seasons:
Season Games
2016: -1.4
2017: -0.7
2018: +4.6
2019: -2.0
2020: +2.0
Toronto Blue Jays
Mark Shapiro, president and CEO; Ross Atkins, executive vice president of baseball operations and general manager
+1.9 games
The Jays’ famously talented young core made sufficient strides in 2020 that it was only necessary for Atkins to tweak that core on the edges in order to produce a MLB playoff team under the expanded rules in force this season.
Still, seeing their chance at a post-season run, Atkins’ front office went after it hard. The team made a hefty 32 personnel decisions affecting the short-term future since the end of the 2019 season, netting a 1.9 game improvement to the club’s talent base as measured by Wins Above Average.
The team’s third place finish in the AL East and position as an eighth seed in the playoff lineup was its reward.
Far and away the most impactful of those moves was the decision last winter to commit $80 million over the next four seasons to the signing of free agent pitcher Hyun-Jin Ryu. Arriving as the leader of an otherwise young rotation, Ryu was 5-2 with a 2.69 ERA in a dozen starts, generating a 2.4 WAA all by himself.
Everything else Shapiro-Atkins paled in impact by comparison with that one move.
In fact, the next most impactful personnel moves with respect to Toronto’s success in 2020 were negative ones. The Jays signed free agent infielder Joe Panik in January, but he hit only .225 and produced a -0.7 WAA. They also signed free agent pitcher Shun Yamagushi out of Japan. Yamaguchi was 2-4 with an 8.06 ERA in seven appearances, translating to a -0.8 WAA. Pitcher Chase Anderson subtracted another -0.8 WAA from the team’s performance.
At least the signing of fellow free agent pitcher Rafael Dolis, 2-2, 1.50, +0.8 WAA in five appearances, and the trade that brought in Taijuan Walker, 2-1, 1.37, +0.7 WAA in six starts, offset some of the negative impact of those other moves.
The annual short-term performance rating of Shapiro-Atkins front office since Atkins was appointed GM prior to the 2016 season:
Season Games
2016: +10.0*
2017: + 1.4
2018: – 7.6
2019: – 5.7
2020: + 1.9
*This was a greater improvement than the margin by which the Blue Jays qualified for post-season play.
Boston Red Sox
Chaim Bloom, chief baseball officer; Brian O’Halloran, general manager
+0.8
This was the first season for the Bloom-O’Halloran team in charge of Boston’s front office, and it was a turbulent one.
That the new management team was able, by season’s end, to look back on at least a modest improvement in the team’s personnel profile is an accomplishment in itself, considering that injuries and COVID combined to rob the club of its two principal pitching assets, left handers Chris Sale and David Price.
The big loss, obviously, came when the Sox decided they could no longer afford right fielder Mookie Betts, the franchise’s iconic every-day player. Betts was traded to LA, where he signed a mega deal and generated 2.9 WAA for his new team.
Had Betts done that in Boston, the lives of Bloom and O’Halloran would have been measurably easier.
How do you trade away a 2.9 WAA player and still emerge at least moderately to the good? Bloom and O’Halloran did it by making a frenetic 42 personnel moves since the end of the 2019 season that impacted their team’s 2020 fortunes. The values of 25 of those 42 moves favored the Red Sox, although most by inconsequential margins. But they added up.
By far the biggest positive impact was the arrival of Alex Verdugo in the Betts trade. Verdugo hit .308 with an .844 OPS, totals that equated to a 1.4 WAA, That didn’t make Red Sox fans forget Betts, but it was a decent offset.
Re-signing Xander Bogaerts to a seven-year, $140 million deal through 2026 also helped; Bogaerts added +0.9 value.
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The arrival of pitcher Tanner Houck, a rookie obtained by the prior administration in a trade and nursed through the team’s system, also helped. Houck was 3-0 with a 0.53 ERA in three starts for Boston. That measured out to a 1.1 WAA.