Rating MLB general managers for 2021: AL West

The award for worst collective performance by a division’s general managers goes to the men who run teams in the AL West … and it’s not close.

Not a single one of the five executives who run AL West teams actually aided their teams by the moves they made since the end of the 2020 season. Collectively, the short-term damage amounted to -50.0 games as measured by Wins Above Average.

Worse, two of the five inadvertently maneuvered their clubs out of postseason play.

Our MLB GM ratings, explained

Our standard for evaluating the performance of a general manager (or other chief executive who holds a functionally similar title) is simple. We attach a value to every personnel move made by the since the conclusion of the 2020 season last October. The sum of the values is the GM’s rating.

The value is determined by the Wins Above Average (WAA) generated by the player during 2021. WAA is an offshoot of WAR, and it is ideal for this purpose because unlike WAR it is zero-based. That means if we say a GM impacted his team by +2.5 games in 2021, he cumulatively improved his team’s fortunes by that many games.

Conversely, a GM with a negative cumulative WAA can be said to have hurt his team’s pennant prospects by that amount.

Broadly speaking, a general manager can impact his team in any of five ways: by the trades, purchase and waiver claims he makes, by his free agent signings or extensions, by his farm system callups, by the players he trades away, and by the players he releases or loses to free agency.

Each general manager should, of course, be judged in the context of what they are attempting to accomplish. As an example, Cubs general manager Jed Hoyer conducted a mid-season tear-down of his roster that was virtually guaranteed to produce a negative rating for Hoyer by season’s end.

Hoyer would probably be OK with that; the moves were designed for future, not present impact.

In the end, the best way to understand the rating is this: It tells how much better or worse a GM made his team’s roster compared with what would have occurred had he (or in the case of the Miami Marlins, she) done nothing at all.

For that reason, the ratings do not necessarily correlate with the final standings. Some GMs are starting from a better position than others.

With that as an explanation, here’s how the five AL West general managers scored in 2021.

AL West GM rankings: 1. Jim Click, Houston Astros

-2.6 WAA

Click’s season succeeded only by comparison with his divisional peers. His Astros won the division for two reasons:

1.       He inherited a huge stash of talent from his predecessor, Jeff Luhnow. Jose Altuve, Yordan Alvarez, Carlos Correa, Yuli Gurriel , Lance  McCullers, Ryan Pressly and Framber Valdez all performed well as legacies of Click.

2.       He did less damage to his roster than his fellow AL West general managers did to theirs.

Objectively, Click did not have an especially effective season. He made 41 personnel moves impacting the major league roster, of which 23 – that’s 56% – yielded a negative return.

Click had his moments. His re-signing of outfielder Michael Brantley looked good when Brantley challenged his teammate, Gurriel, for the batting title. He hit .311. Still, a slim eight home runs and 47 RBI dropped his WAA to just +0.8.

Statistically, the better moves involved the callups of pitcher Luis Garcia and outfielder Chas McCormick. McCormick hit .257 with14 home runs, Garcia was 11-8 with a 3.30 ERA in 28 starts, and they combined for +2.6 ERA.

Click’s biggest problem may have been his propensity to disperse talent across the rest of the league. He moved nine players out of the Houston orbit to other stops, and seven of them produced positive value for their new clubs. George Springer was +1.4 in Toronto, Myles Starw was +1.0 in Cleveland, and Colllin McHugh was +1.3 in Tampa Bay.

That’s the kind of charity a general manager usually tries to avoid.

2. AL West GM rankings: Jerry DiPoto, Seattle Mariners president of baseball operations

-10.1 WAA

In the standings, DiPoto’s Mariners were one of the surprises of the season. They way over-performed both expectations and their Pythagorean projections, and at 90-72 took their post-season hopes down to the final day before coming up two games short.

Perhaps in part for that reason, DiPoto in September was promoted from general manager to president.

So it pains me to note that DiPoto’s moves collectively harmed the Mariners by more than 10 games in 2021. Translation: If DiPoto had merely napped all year, the roster he ended 2020 with would have played post-season ball, and probably won the AL West, in 2021.

DiPoto made  44 personnel moves impacting the team’s 2021 roster, of which only 11 – that’s 25 percent – helped the team.  Notably, he acquired 16 players in straight deals with other teams, and those 16 handicapped the Mariners by 4.9 games in 2021. Only Chris Young in Texas and Ben  Cherington in Pittsburgh had worse records in that category.

Jared Kelenic may – probably will – become a star. But his early season callup may have  doomed the Mariners before their serious pennant rush got started. Kelenic debuted in mid-May, and by Aug. 1 was batting just .124. Kelenic picked it up in August and September, but his season still worked out to -3.0 WAA.

Like Click, DiPoto’s departures hurt. He bade farewell to a half dozen players who produced value for their new teams, all but one of whom helped their new teams. Notably, DiPoto’s October release of pitcher Nestor Cortes  backfired when Cortes went to the Bronx and stood out as a starter-reliever, generating a +2.1 WAA.

3. AL West GM rankings:  David Forst, Oakland A’s 

-10.4 WAA

Like DiPoto, Forst’s A’s came close to reaching post-season play. They finished six games short in the wild card race, nine out of the division, and Forst’s unproductive efforts to help his club had a lot to do with both shortcomings.

Forst – and his better-known senior partner, team president Billy Beane – made 42 personnel moves that impacted the major league roster in 2021. But 24 of those moves – that’s 57 percent – hurt the A’s.

None hurt worse than  the free agency loss of Marcus Semien, whose +4.9 WAA for the Toronto Blue Jays amply demonstrates his star status. Forst replaced Semien at shortstop with Elvis Andrus, a trade pickup from Texas. Andrus’ WAA was -1.2, a difference of 6.1 games at that one position alone.

As the operator of a budget-oriented club, Forst tried to make hay on the free agent bargain basement table. It didn’t work. He signed or extended a dozen available players, none of whom produced a value to the A’s in excess of +0.2 WAA. Their collective impact was -3.3 games.

Oakland’s farm system was basically a non-factor. Forst used only three first-year players all season, none of the three getting significant playing time.

4. AL West GM rankings:  Perry Minasian, Los Angeles Angels

-11.3 WAA

The initiation process into the fraternity of general managers is an imposing one. Six GMs debuted in 2021, only one of whom – Sam Fuld in Philadelphia – actually improved his team short-term. The GM’s average first-year hit was -6.1 games.

Minasian only wishes his season went that well. Driven in part by the loss to injury of Mike Trout, he made 52 personnel decisions impacting the major league roster, of which 34 – 65 percent – worked out to the team’s short-term detriment.

The sole highlight was Minasian’s trade with the Cincinnati Reds that obtained Raisel Iglesias for the bullpen in exchange for Noe Ramirez and a minor leaguer. Iglesias was a breath of fresh air in a bad pen: he had a 2.57 ERA and 34 saves in 65 appearances.  That translated to 1.6 WAA.

Now for the rest of the story. In a separate deal, Minasian picked up shortstop Jose Iglesias from Baltimore for a couple of minor leaguers.   Iglesias was so bad that Minasian released him in September, but by then his lack of on-base ability and power, combined with sub-par defense, translated to -2.5 WAA.

The free agent market proved just as challenging for the new guy. He signed or extended 17 players, a remarkable five of whom ran up WAAs of -1.0 or worse. The indictable five were Phil Gosselin (-1.6), Juan Lagares (-1.4), Jose Quintana (-1.3), Kurt Suzuki (-1.3) and Junior Guerra (-1.0).

Minasian’s bottom line regarding free agent signings was -8.9 WAA, the worst in the majors.

The only upside was that since the Angels were never in contention in the first place, none of that substantial harm really mattered in the short-term.