AL East: A mid-term front office assessment of all five teams

Just as his New York Yankees have dominated the first half of the 2022 AL East, so has Yankee general manager Brian Cashman dominated the division’s front office work.

Cashman’s various personnel moves since the conclusion of the 2021 season have improved Yankee fortunes by 7.3 games based on Wins Above Average. That is nearly six games more than any of the division’s four other front offices have managed, and goes a long way toward accounting for New York’s imposing 12.5 game lead in the standings entering July.

The analysis that follows is an assessment of the impact each AL East front office’s personnel decisions since November of 2021 have had on their team’s standing right now. It is based on the aggregate Wins Above Average of moves made in five areas:

• Players acquired by trade, purchase or waiver claim.
• Players signed as free agents or extended for more than one year.
• Minor league callups.
• Players lost via trade, waiver claim or sale.
• Players lost to free agency or released.

Wins Above Average is the preferred metric for this calculation because it is zero-based, meaning that it approximately reflects  the number of games by which a front office either helped or hurt its team in the standings.

There was one change of significance to front office leadership in the division this season. Erik Neander, who had been general manager of the Tampa Bay Rays for several seasons, was promoted to president of baseball operations and Peter Bendix was appointed general manager. Otherwise, the key front office players in the division remain as they were in 2021:

Baltimore Orioles: Mike Elias, executive vice president and general manager.

Boston Red Sox: Chaim Bloom, president; Brian O’Halloran, general manager.

New York Yankees: Brian Cashman, senior vice president and general manager.

Toronto Blue Jays: Ross Atkins, executive vice president of baseball operations and general manager.

From best to worst, here’s how AL East front offices have performed thus far in 2022.

1. New York Yankees front office +7.3

Cashman’s various personnel moves this past winter and spring transformed the Yankees from a divisional contender into a powerhouse. His front office created value in all five areas of measurement, and that value has totaled 7.3 games through the season’s first half.

Since the end of the 2021 World Series, Cashman has made 25 roster moves impacting either the Yankees or another major league team. An astonishing 18 of those 25 moves — 72 percent — worked out in favor of the Yankees, while only five imposed negative value on the team (two were neutral).

Here’s a synopsis of the most impactful of those moves through July 1.

April 2: Cashman acquired catcher Jose Trevino from the Texas Rangers for Albert Abreu and a minor leaguer. Trevino is batting .263 with a solid .749 OPS, figures that translate to +1.5 WAA. That ranks him fourth among all Yankee position players behind only Aaron Judge, Gleyber Torres and D J LeMahieu. As a bonus, Cashman later reacquired Abreu.

Nov. 22: Cashman shipped utility player Tyler Wade to the Angels for a player to be named later. In Anaheim, Wade has been a liability, batting just .21 and generating -0.9 WAA.

Nov. 23: As a start to the process of improving the team’s middle infield, Cashman released veteran Rougned Odor. It was a smart move. Odor signed with the Orioles, where he has been terrible. He’s hitting .198 with a .638 OPS and -0.8 WAA.

March 13, 2022: The biggest trade of the team’s off-season acquired Josh Donaldson, Isiah Kiner-Falefa and Ben Rortvedt from the Twins in exchange for Gio Urshela and Gary Sanchez. Donaldson was the key catch. He’s only hitting .225, but his 21 extra base hits translate to a .700 OPS and +0.7 WAA.

May 26: Cashman signed veteran Matt Carpenter, who had been released one week earlier by the Rangers. With the Yankees, Carpenter has been a valued pinch hitter. He’s hitting .250 with six home runs in just 46 plate appearances, and his 1.178 OPS has already generated +0.7 WAA for the Yankees.

3. Toronto Blue Jays front office -0.3

With his Blue Jays a popular pick to make a run at the AL East this season, Atkins labored intensely to upgrade the team’s personnel this winter and spring. The big acquisition was the trade with Oakland that brought in Matt Chapman to play third base at a cost of minor leaguers and fringe players.

But Chapman has been only a modest upgrade, entering July batting .223. He does have 11 home runs and that power has translated to a modestly positive +0.5 WAA. But it has not (not yet anyway) made the acquisition of Chapman one of Atkins’ more impactful moves this season.

The moves Atkins has made – there have been 31 of them – haven’t collectively moved the team needle. They amount to -0.3 games of WAA. Only 10 of the 31 moves produced positive value to the Jays, while a dozen turned negative and a startling nine generated neutral value. Here are the five most impactful.

March 24: Atkins’ two most impactful moves occurred simultaneously. The Jays acquired outfielder Raimel Tapia and a minor leaguer from the Colorado Rockies in exchange for outfielder Randall Grichuk. Tapia has rotated among all three outfield positions, and his .260 batting average is nothing to sneeze at. But he lacks power, has only drawn eight walks, and as a result his OPS is an anemic .651. That makes his impact on the team -1.5 WAA.

Grichuk, meanwhile, has been a reasonably productive player in Colorado. The averages are virtually identical – Grichuk is batting .259 – but he has eight homers, a dozen walks and a .701 OPS. That puts Grichuk’s value to the Rockies at +1.1 WAA, a black mark against Atkins.

March 14: Atkins signed a three-year, $36 million deal with free agent pitcher Yusei Kikuchi, who was coming off a 7-9, 4.41 ERA season in Seattle. Through 15 starts with the Jays, Kikuchi is 3-4 with a 4.74 ERA and a -1.0 WAA.

Nov. 3: The Jays let outfielder Corey Dickerson walk away to free agency. Following the conclusion of the lockout, Dickerson found work in St. Louis. But in a backrup role he is hitting just .194 with two homers and a -0.9 WAA, making Atkins look smart for letting him go.

Nov. 3: Steven Matz also became a free agent on Nov. 3, leaving behind a 14-7 season with the Jays in which he made 29 starts and pitched 150 innings. The Cardinals also signed Matz, and with as little success as Dickerson. Through nine starts he’s 3-3 but with a 6.03 ERA and -0.8 WAA. He’s now on the injured list.

4. Boston Red Sox front office -3.3

The Red Sox enter July in a tie for second in the AL East. Still it has not been an especially good first half for Bloom, O’Halloran, and the rest of the Boston front office.

That management team has made 21 personnel moves involving major leaguers since the end of the 2021 season, and the net impact on Boston’s fortunes is a disappointing -3.3 games as measured by WAA. Put that up against the +7.3 game impact Cashman has had on the Yankees and you account for virtually all of the distance by which Boston trails New York in the standings.

Of those 21 moves, seven produced positive value for Boston, but a dozen hurt the team’s cause. The five most impactful listed below feature two among the top three that more than explain the 3.3 game handicap under which the Red Sox have labored.

Nov. 7: That’s the date Martin Perez became a free agent following two years as a part of Boston’s rotation. Perez was a 30-year-old with a sub-.500 record and undistinguished ERA during two years with the Sox, so the decision to let him go was not surprising. But in his first three months in Texas, he has won six of eight decisions and halved his ERA down to 2.22 in 15 starts. That amounts to a +2.2 WAA. The Sox could have used that.

Nov. 27: The Sox essentially recouped their Perez losses by signing Michael Wacha for one year at $7 million. In 13 starts, he’s 6-1 with a 2.69 ERA and a 1.5 WAA.

Dec. 1: The reunion with Jackie Bradley has gone less swimmingly. Traded back to his original team with two minor leaguers for Hunter Renfroe – more on him in a moment – Bradley has shown the same lack of offense that got him moved out of town in 2021. He’s batting .207 with one home run, a pitiful .555 OPS and a -1.4 WAA.

Dec. 1: Now about Renfroe. In Milwaukee he’s batting .247 – not great but 40 points better than Bradley – with a .789 OPPS that beats Bradley by 234 points. Renfroe’s +0.8 WAA to the season’s midway point means the interim assessment of that trade favors the Brewers by a solid 2.3 games.

March 23: Trevor Story was one of the big free agent catches of the 2022 offseason and the Red Sox caught him. His first half, though, has been decidedly underwhelming. Story is off to a .224 start – he does have a dozen home runs – and a .720 OPS that is 130 points below his career average. In fairness to Story, It still adds up to a +0.8 WAA contribution, so it’s a net gain, if not a strikingly large one.

5. Baltimore Orioles front office -3.5

The Orioles entered 2022 as clearly the division’s worst team by consensus. That gave Elias plenty of room to work, if little talent to work with.

Through the first half of the season, he’s made transactions involving 30 major league players. As might be expected given the team’s talent base, about half of those transactions – 16 to be precise – returned negative impact on the Orioles. Only eight were positive, the other six were neutral. The next impact of everything Elias has done to date amounts to -3.5 games.

For better or worse, here are the five most impactful.

March 12: Elias signed starter Jordan Lyles to a two-year, $17 million contract. So far the deal is a bust. Lyle’s 15 starts have produced a 4-7 record and 4.94 ERA that equates to -1.0 WAA.

Nov. 24: When Cincinnati put reliever Cionel Perez on waivers, Elias staked a claim. That move has worked out well for Baltimore. In 29 appearances encompassing 24 innings, Perez has a 4-1 record and 1.14 ERA with a save and +0.9 WAA.  Given their light workloads, reliever profiles can change as quickly as you can say six-run inning, but thus far the Perez deal has been a quiet success.

April 10: Rookie reliever Felix Bautista made the opening day roster and has pitched 30 innings with a 1.50 ERA. That adds up to +0.8 WAA for Elias.

Nov. 30: When the Yankees released Rougned Odor in mid-November, Elias signed him on the cheap; the veteran middle infielder, with two years to go on a multi-year deal he had signed with Texas, came to Baltimore for the major league minimum. Whether he’s been worth that is debatable. Odor is hitting .198 with a .638 OPA and has generated -0.8 WAA to the Orioles.

March 15: Chris Owings was one of those players left without a team when the lockout was called. At the first post-lockout opportunity, he signed with Baltimore. But Owings managed only six hits in 68 plate appearances — a -0.7 WAA — before being released in mid-June. He has since caught on with the Yankees but has not been activated.