MLB: Assessing the NL Central GMs at the midway point

The halfway point of the 2021 MLB season is also an appropriate time to offer a mid-term assessment of the team-building strategies of Major League GMs.

Today: The National League Central.

Assessing the NL Central GMs at the midway point of the MLB season

Over the past 10 days, the division has become the game’s most turbulent. The Milwaukee Brewers ran off a long winning streak to seize the largest mid-season advantage of any division. The Chicago Cubs, in first place in mid month, now project to be trade deadline sellers. The Cincinnati Reds are showing late life, and with seven games against Milwaukee wrapped around the All Star break cannot be dismissed.

There are intimations of all of that laced throughout the mid-term ratings of NL GM performance.

We’re assessing GM performance based on the short-term impact of all personnel moves made since the conclusion of the 2020 season. Our rating standard is Wins Above Average, a variant of Wins Above Replacement that is superior for this purpose because it is zero-based.

That means each GM’s score approximately replicates the number of games he has influenced his team’s standing, either for better or for worse, by dint of what he has done to the roster.

Of course, much of each GM’s work remains to be accomplished. With the July 31 MLB trade deadline, the second half of every season is usually more active than the first half. That means these ratings can change significantly between now and October.

As you look at these ratings, it’s also worth keeping in mind that this system is not designed to necessarily replicate each team’s standing in the race. Rather, it is designed to estimate how much of an impact each GM has had since the end of last season. In theory, that means a GM of a bad team could generate a positive score by modestly improving what was a poor talent base, while the GM of a good team might generate a negative score by making only a few unproductive moves to what was already a very strong ballclub.

With that said, here are the mid-term ratings for the five NL Central general managers.

Milwaukee Brewers, GM David Stearns, -0.4 games

The Brewers are so solidly in first place in the NL Central that it likely will surprise many to see that Stearns’ moves since the end of last season have actually done modest harm to his team.

How can that be? It’s simple, actually: Statistically about three-quarters of any team’s talent base is comprised of players whose performance does not factor into a GM’s short-term rating. Most of every team’s key players have been signed to multi-year deals, while others are young and thus pre-free agent or even pre-arbitration.

One look at the team’s five most valuable players for the first half of 2021 cements that idea: Brandon Woodruff, Freddy Peralta, Josh Hader, Corbin Burnes and Omar Narvaez are all either pre-arb, arb 1 or at most arb 2. None are playing under new, freely negotiated contracts, none were acquired since October 2020, and none are first-year callups.

What has Stearns done? Most notably, he acquired shortstop Willy Adames (+1.2) from the Tampa Bay Rays. Adames has been surprisingly productive, batting .292 with the kind of power that is required of Brewers players. The deal cost Stearns reliever J.P. Feyerheisen (+0.8 for Tampa Bay), but that’s still a net gain to Milwaukee of 0.4 games.

Otherwise, Stearns has contented himself with working around the fringes of his team. He has brought in or re-signed 22 players who have contributed this season, while ridding Milwaukee of six players who went elsewhere. As is almost always the case, most of those moves have had trivial impact; 16 of the 28 moves generated between -0.3 and +0.3 WAA.

Here’s a recap of some of the more significant ones.

• He re-signed veteran free agent infielder Jace Peterson (+0.7), and signed veteran free agents Travis Shaw (-1.3), Kolten Wong (1.4) and Jackie Bradley (-1.1). Net impact: -0.3 games.
• He purchased reliever Hunter Strickland (+0.4) from the Angels.
• He released backup outfielder Ben Gamel, who signed with Cleveland and then was waived to Pittsburgh. Net impact of Gamel’s loss on the Brewers: +0.6 games.

St. Louis Cardinals, GM Mike Girsch, -0.6 games

Girsch and team president John Mozeliak swung MLB’s biggest deal, the theft of All Star third baseman Nolan Arenado from Colorado for a little noticed pitcher and some prospects. That’s a logical place to begin.

Arenado (+1.4) has to date contributed an .829 OPS plus his expected five-star glovework. He came at the cost of Austin Gomber (+0.4), but that still creates a net gain to the Cardinals of +1.0.

Girsch’s other principal winter moves were internal. He re-signed the linchpins of the team’s battery – starter Adam Wainwright (+0.4) and catcher Yadier Molina (+0.5). Given the desultory state of the rest of the St. Louis rotation, Wainwright’s 6-5 record and 3.49 ERA at age 39 have been godsends.

Molina, meanwhile, may at age 38 is having one of his best seasons.

If that sole move improved the usually strong Cardinals by a full game, then why is the team in fourth place in its division? And more pertinently to the topic at hand, why is Girsch’s mid-term rating modestly negative?

Girsch’s biggest problem has been the lack of performance of his first year class. Girsch has employed 10 players who retain first year status this season. Those 10 include pitchers Seth Elledge (-0.2) and Ryan Helsley (-0.6), outfielder Justin Williams (-1.0), infielder Edmundo Sosa (+0.6), and backup catcher Andrew Knizner (-0.4). Net impact of those 10 rookies: -2.5 games.

Chicago Cubs, GM Jed Hoyer, -4.3 games

Over the winter, the Cubs cut ties with ace starter Yu Darvish (+1.7), starter Jon Lester (-1.0) and outfielder Kyle Schwarber (+1.1), and everybody decided Chicago was throwing in the towel.

Then the Cubs finished May in first place in their division and everybody cast them as trade deadline buyers.

Now they have wrapped up June and began July with a nine-game losing streak and everybody sees them as trade deadline sellers again.

The wisdom of those winter deals is coming fully into question. Darvish went to the Padres with catcher Victor Caratini (-0.4) for Zach Davies (-0.3), a net impact on the Cubs of -1.6 games. The loss of Schwarber to the Nationals cost another game.

Hoyer has tried to offset those losses through free agent signings, 18 of them in all. The most noteworthy was Jake Arrieta. But Arrieta (-2.1) suffered through a 5-8, 5.57 first half. Joc Pederson (-1.1) was brought in from Los Angeles to replace Schwarber, running the effective difference of the Schwarber decision on the Cubs to -2.1 games.

Starter Trevor Williams (-0.7) has missed much of the first half with injuries. That brings the bottom line impact of all of Hoyer’s MLB free agent signings to date to a problematic -5.1 games. When a GM does that poorly on the open market, there’s trouble afoot.

Pittsburgh Pirates, GM Ben Cherington, -4.9 games

Cherington has been nothing if not aggressive in his efforts to reinvigorate the Pirates franchise. Since the end of the 2020 season, he has acquired a dozen players who have taken the major league field, signed eight free agents, and promoted three rookies.

Meanwhile, 11 former Pirates have been dispatched either by trade, sale, waiver or free agency.

None of the 23 arrivals have made a significant positive contribution greater than free agent reliever Chasen Shreve’s +0.5 games.

By contrast, seven new Pirates have produced negative values in excess of that half-game standard.

The most notable:

• Rookie Will Craig (-0.8).
• Free agent pitcher Trevor Cahill (-0.9).
• Free agent infielder Todd Frazier (-0.5) and free agent outfielder Wilmer Difo (-0.6).
• The purchase of outfielder Dustin Fowler (-0.6) from Oakland.
• Pitcher Wil Crowe (-0.9) came over from Washington in exchange for Josh Bell (0.0). Net impact of that trade to the Pirates: -0.9.
• Pitcher Luis Oviedo (-0.6) was purchased from the Miami Marlins.
• Outfielder Ka’ai Tom (-0.6) was picked up on waivers from Oakland.

That’s a lot of churn, but little positive movement. Cherington’s team has three productive assets, outfielder Bryan Reynolds, catcher Jake Stallings, and infielder Adam Frazier, and all three are contractual holdovers from the Neal Huntington administration.