Rating MLB general managers: The AL Central

Michael Chernoff, Cleveland Indians general manager

-0.4

Chernoff took a lot of guff for the preseason ‘give up’ trade of Francisco Lindor to New York. The trade certainly was a short-term loss to the Indians, who got the less expensive and less talented Andres Gimenez and Amed Rosario in return.

Chernoff made 39 personnel moves this season, of which 17 (44 percent) created positive value and 49 percent – the three parts of the Lindor trade among them – impacted the team negatively.

Chernoff’s recurring problem was that none of his arrivals involved a significant positive short term impact. The best was the July trade that brought Myles Straw over from Houston in exchange for filler reliever Phil Maton and a minor leaguer.

Straw, who could develop into a positive asset, batted .285 with a .739 OPS in his 60 games, amounting to +1.0 WAA.

Overall, though, Chernoff did not have a good season at the trade mart. He obtained seven players in exchange for nine players, the cumulative impact on the Indians of those moves amounting to just  +0.8 games.

The Indians’ farm system did not deliver. Chernoff called on nine first-year players, seven of whom produced negative value. The sum total of the nine players was -5.7 WAA.

The overall -0.4 short term WAA combined with the +0.2 WAA produced by players previously under contract clearly labels the 2021 Indians as an average MLB team, which at 80-82 happens to be precisely what they were.