2020 MLB Season: Rating front offices of the AL West

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New Astros general manager Jim Click (left) with team owner Jim Crane. (Photo by Bob Levey/Getty Images) /

Houston’s new GM is the only one to improve his MLB team’s talent base.

The story of AL West front offices in 2020 is really the story of one guy. It’s the one guy who wasn’t even in the organization when the year began.

It is, in other words, the quintessential 2020 story.

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Jim Click began the year with a solid job, as vice president of baseball ops for the Tampa Bay Rays. But when the Houston Astros sign-stealing scandal erupted and team owner Jim Crane fired both his general manager and manager, Click pivoted to a new assignment. He was the man in charge of reshaping the Astros’ front office.

Houston fell to second place in the AL West this year, but Click did his darndest to break the fall. His late moves enhanced the team’s standing by 1.6 games, the division’s most productive performance, and the only AL West general manager whose moves actually improved his club’s prospects.

Our front office 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 a 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 betides 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. Those rare instances are marked by an X.

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.

Findings for the East and Central divisions in both leagues have already been reported. This analysis of the AL West front offices is not ordered on final standing, but rather on the extent of the front office’s positive or negative contribution to the team profile.

Houston Astros

Jeff Luhnow, GM (through Feb. 2): -0.2; Jim Click, GM (from Feb. 3): +1.5

Luhnow’s impact on Houston’s fortunes turns out to be strikingly modest. He made only 13 personnel decisions affecting the team in 2020, of which by far the most profound was the loss of ace pitcher Gerrit Cole to the Yankees via free agency.

His only signings of consequence were the five-year, $100 million contract he gave Alex Bregman in March of 2019 and the two-year, $7 million deal he gave catcher Martin Maldonado, who played the relatively modest role Maldonado plays wherever he goes.

He also signed Justin Verlander in 2019 to a new deal that began in 2020, but the impact of that signing was almost entirely mitigated when Verlander developed arm problems early in the season.

To Click falls the statistical credit for Houston’s exceptional rookie crop. There were 16 of them, easily the most impactful being outfielder Kyle Tucker. He hit .268 with nine home runs, producing a +1.1 Wins Above Average.

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Pitcher Cristian Javier was a significant second find. At a time when much of the Astros’ staff was succumbing to injury, Javier came up and delivered five wins in 10 starts with a credible 3.48 ERA, good for +0.9 WAA.

Not surprisingly given the circumstances Click inherited – his late arrival, the scandal, and COVID being the three most profound – he moved zero 2020 contributors out of the organization.

(Photo by Jayne Kamin-Oncea/Getty Images) /

Los Angeles Angels

Billy Eppler, GM: -0.5 games

Eppler was dismissed by team owner Arte Moreno after a five-year tenure that saw plenty of flash but no actual result.

The players Eppler spent money on players who would go a long way toward filling a PR All-Star team. They included Mike Trout, Justin Upton, Shohei Ohtani, and Alex Rendon. In fact, the most constant element of Eppler’s tenure was the signing of a mega-star to a mega-deal.

That only goes to prove that you can’t buy a pennant. All the flash never brought the Angles as much as a .500 record during Eppler’s tenure, much less a playoff appearance.

The 2020 season was typical. He signed Rendon (seven years, $245 million), traded for Dylan Bundy, and hired celebrity manager Joe Madden. But the Angels finished 26-34 and fourth in the AL West. At 5.09, they were third-worst in AL ERA.

For the season, Eppler made 31 personnel moves affecting the 2020 roster, but only 12 of them produced a positive impact. Rendon (+1.4) and Bundy (+1.2) were the obvious standouts.

But the promotion of rookie phenom Jo Adell hurt Los Angeles almost as much as those other moves helped. Adell may be great someday, but he hit just.161 in 132 plate appearances and yielded -1.8 WAA.

Here is the annual short-term performance rating of the Angels’ front office since Eppler became general manager in 2016:

2016: -6.1
2017: +0.6
2018: -0.8
2019: -4.3
2020: -0.5

Oakland Athletics

Billy Beane, executive VP of baseball ops; David Forst, GM: -0.9 games

When Billy Beane was elevated to the more lofty-sounding role of executive VP, he made Forst his general manager and the two have functioned as a team since the end of the 2015 season. Statistically, the arrangement has had its ups and downs.

The Athletics did win the AL West in 2020, but that championship was not greatly impacted by what the team’s front office did. To the extent they moved the needle at all, Beane and Forst moved it in the wrong direction.

The truth is that like several other AL West front offices, Beane and Forst didn’t really do much at all in 2020. They made only 21 personnel moves of substance, nine positive, 11 negative, and one neutral.

From a dollar standpoint, the most important was the puzzling decision to extend struggling one-dimensional slugger Khris Davis for two more seasons.

Perhaps the explanation lies in the fact that while the $33.5 million contract went into effect in 2020, it was actually finalized in April of 2019 before the full extent of Davis’ decline became obvious. Whatever the reason, Davis repaid their faith with a .200, two home run season that amounted to -0.6 WAA.

Substantively, the big move was the promotion of catcher Sean Murphy to full-time big leaguer. Murphy’s seven home runs and .821 OPS translated to +0.7 WAA. Reliever Jake Diekman, re-signed prior to the season, added another +0.9.

Beane’s legendary trade acumen betrayed him in 2020, dragging down the front office’s rating. He and Forst acquired nine players in deals with other teams, only two of whom produced any positive value, none more than +0.3.

Meanwhile, his decision to ship Jurickson Profar to San Diego backfired when Profar produced a solid +0.7 season for his new team.

Related Story. 2020 MLB GM Ratings: The National League East. light

Here is the annual short-term performance rating of the Athletics’ front office since the Beane-Forst team was created in 2016:

2016: -10.8
2017: – 2.1
2018: + 0.1
2019: + 5.9*
2020: – 0.9

*This was a greater improvement than the margin by which the Athletics qualified for post-season play.

(Photo by Tom Pennington/Getty Images) /

Texas Rangers

Jon Daniels, president of baseball ops and GM: -1.7 games

Some day somebody is going to explain how Jon Daniels has lasted this long as general manager of the Rangers. It is not understandable based on his record.

Since assuming charge of the front office in 2006, Daniels’ various personnel moves have damaged Texas’ roster by more than 30 WAA. He’s only improved the team in six of those seasons, none since 2016.

In 2020, the Rangers managed to finish 14 games behind the division leaders, which is quite a feat in 60 games. They haven’t been closer than that since winning the division in 2016.

Yet Daniels not only remains in office, he appears to remain secure. He signed a multi-year extension in 2018 of an unannounced length.

In 2020, Daniels did what he usually does. Of his 36 personnel moves since the end of the 2019 season affecting the team’s roster, only nine – that’s 25 percent, folks – produced short-term positive value.

The most positive were a pair of rookies, pitcher Kyle Cody and outfielder Leody Taveras. Both touched +0.8.

His more publicized moves did not fare nearly as well. He traded for Corey Kluber, but learned what the Indians already knew: Kluber’s best days were behind him. Jordan Lyles signed a two-year, $16 million free-agent deal and returned a 1-6 record and 7.02 ERA.

Kyle Gibson, brought in with Lyles and Kluber to bolster the rotation, was 2-6, 5.35.

The sum total of all of Daniels’ forays into the free-agent market since the end of 2019 amounted to -3.6 games. Among the 31 MLB GMs (counting Luhnow and Click separately), that ranked 28th.

Here is the annual short-term performance rating of the Rangers front office since 2016:

2016: +2.4
2017: +4.1
2018: -2.4
2019: -4.2
2020: -1.7

Seattle Mariners

Jerry DiPoto, executive VP and GM of baseball ops: -4.8 games

In terms of consistent, year-to-year inefficiency, DiPoto is Daniels’ more mobile doppelganger. The largest difference between the two is that while Daniels has spent his entire GM career in one place, DiPoto has twice (Arizona in 2011, Los Angeles in 2016) beaten the sheriff out of town.

Nonetheless, let the record show that over 10 seasons running big league front offices in three cities, DiPoto has hurt his teams’ chances by a collective 25.9 games.