Brian Cashman, senior vice president and general manager, New York Yankees
+5.2 WAA
The veteran Yankee front office leader, whose team made the MLB postseason by the hairs-breadth margin of a single game, is the other GM with a solid claim to having kicked his club over the top.
Cashman made 41 player personnel moves that affected New York’s major league roster. Although only 17 yielded positive value – 19 were negative, five were neutral – the positive moves included three in excess of one full game of WAA.
Since Cashman made no serious personnel mistakes this season, those three big plus moves were enough to produce his +5.2 rating.
The most significant was a quiet one, the signing of free agent pitcher Nestor Cortes Jr. in January following his release by the Mariners. A former Yankee traded to Seattle in 2020, Cortes rewarded his old-new team with 14 starts, eight relief appearances, and a 2.90 ERA in 93 innings.
To a Yankee staff that sometimes seemed to be in perpetual crisis, Cortes’ +2.1 WAA was a godsend. In fact, based on that yardstick he was the second most valuable Yankee pitcher, trailing only Gerrit Cole.
Cashman’s October decision to release veteran pitcher J.A. Happ appeared at the time to raise questions about the depth of the Yankee rotation. Happ had been decent for New York in 2020, with a 2-2 record and ERA under 3.50.
But Cashman was prescient. Happ went off to Minnesota, where he crashed and burned bad enough that they traded him to the Cardinals. His net for the season was a 5.69 ERA and -2.7 WAA, numbers Cashman did well to avoid inflicting on his own club.