5 MLB front office shakeups that could happen in 2022
5. Oakland Athletics
Team President Billy Beane is a god-like figure among those who brainstorm baseball strategies in MLB front offices these days. His right-hand man, general manager David Forst, has worked with Beane since 2016.
With good reason. Three different times Beane — once with Forst’s able assistance — has built the low-budget A’s up from scratch into a divisional powerhouse. Under Beane’s stewardship, Oakland won three divisional titles between 2000 and 2003, won two more in 2012-13, and qualified for postseason play annually from 2018 through 2020.
But never in Beane’s lengthy tenure have the Athletics looked as desperate as they look right now. Their .368 winning percentage entering play Thursday would, if it continues through season’s end, be the worst of Beane’s quarter-century tenure by a significant distance. Without a stadium plan, the team has no predictable revenue base with which to turn things around.
Three-quarters of the way through the home schedule, attendance in Oakland is under 9,000 per game. That’s alarming
Beyond that, Beane is running the team on an open-ended contract that can be terminated at any point. Forst’s contract expires at the end of 2023, a major red flag.
Even granting all of the above, given Beane’s established record his removal would still be a surprise. Less surprising, though, might be an ultimatum from ownership for structural change designed to appease a diminishing fan base that made Forst the fall guy.
This much seems certain. The situation in Oakland approaching the conclusion of 2022 appears to be more fraught with peril than it has been at any point in Beane’s tenure. That means nothing should be seen as a surprise.
4. Cincinnati Reds
When Dick Williams was promoted to team president following the end of the 2017 season, Nick Krall was named general manager in his place. Krall’s responsibilities were expanded to encompass Williams’ duties when Williams retired in 2020.
Krall’s tenure has not been an especially rewarding period for Reds fans. The team has played two postseason games in that time, both in 2020 under the COVID-driven expanded format. The Reds lost both games.
They are 304-364, a .442 percentage under Williams/Krall or Krall alone, and sit at 48-74 this season on a course to finish dead last in the NL Central, a consensus pick as baseball’s worst division.
If it holds up, their current .393 winning percentage would be the franchise’s worst since 1982. Beyond that, Krall — like Beane in Oakland — is working on an open-ended contract meaning he can be jettisoned at almost any point.
At fewer than 19,000 fans per game, the Reds’ fan situation isn’t as bad as the A’s — nobody’s is — but it’s also far from sufficient.
Beyond that, team owner Bob Castellini does not have a reputation for patience with his front office team. He’s already swapped out four front office leaders in 16 seasons, so he’s right on schedule for another change at the top. Until Krall, only Walt Jocketty managed to last more than three seasons as a GM for Castellini. Krall is completing his fifth season.
It would be surprising if there was a sixth in his future.
3. Arizona Diamondbacks
Mike Hazen was named executive vice president and general manager of the Diamondbacks following the 2016 season, coming over from a similar position with the Boston Red Sox. Hazen serves under president and CEO Derrick Hall.
The problem is that the D-Backs don’t appear to be going anywhere productive under Hazen. They have made one playoff appearance with him as GM, that coming in his first season, 2017. It lasted three games, the time it took the Dodgers to sweep them.
In Hazen’s tenure, Arizona is 393-438, a .473 percentage. They lost 110 games last season and are on pace to lose close to 90 more this year. That may or may not be good enough to keep them out of last place in the NL West for a third straight season.
Analytically, the problem is that Hazen’s deals haven’t helped. As measured by Wins Above Average, the sum total of his personnel moves since 2017 has damaged Arizona’s performance annually since 2017 to an average of about three games per season in the first year and three more games in ensuing seasons.
That means the division powerhouse Dodgers are steadily receding from view on the baseball horizon.
Hazen signed what was described as a “multi-year extension” with the Diamondbacks in September of 2019, but that only means he’s squarely in peril. If he survives, it will likely only be because Hall blames somebody other than Hazen for the team’s failures, but the data suggests Hazen is at least part of the problem.
2. San Diego Padres
A.J. Preller may be baseball’s best known front office executive. Named GM of the Padres in August of 2014, he was elevated to President of Baseball Ops in 2021, and is now working on an extension through 2026.
That extension may be what saves Preller, who at some point has to deliver results. In recent seasons Preller has signed, extended or traded for megastars of the stripe of Manny Machado, Juan Soto, Yu Darvish, and Fernando Tatis, and presided over a more than doubling of the team payroll from $90 million when he took over to more than $210 million today.
What’s all of that sturm und drang gotten the Padres? It’s gotten them exactly one COVID-inspired playoff series in 2020, a series they were swept out of in three straight games by their arch-nemeses, the Dodgers.
With one of the most talked-about teams in 2021, the Padres collapsed down the stretch and missed the postseason entirely. Three quarters of the way through 2022, they are well-positioned to reprise that 2021 collapse.
It’s obviously unfair to blame Tatis’ self-inflicted 2022 wounds on Preller. But it was Preller’s call to lock Tatis up through 2034 … how smart does that decision look now? And what of Eric Hosmer, Blake Snell, Wil Myers, Garrett Richards, and a host of other high-profile deals which — with the singular exception of Machado — haven’t really worked out?
If the Padres do collapse again, the only thing that would save Preller would be his own job security, namely that extension he wangled out of team owner Peter Seidler a few years ago. Then again, thanks to Preller, Seidler is already paying Hosmer nearly $40 million to not play ball for him through 2025. In that sense, the cost of unloading an expensive and ineffective team president may be worthwhile.
1. Chicago White Sox
Rick Hahn was widely heralded as a genius molder of talent when he swung a series of trades a few years ago designed to lift the Sox to a dominant position in the AL Central.
Those trades brought Chicago’s Southsiders the core of the present team: Yoan Moncada, Lucas Giolito, Eloy Jimenez, Reynaldo Lopez, Michael Kopech, and Dylan Cease.
As a group, they were supposed to carry the White Sox to dominance in the very available AL Central. That hasn’t happened and, in the waning weeks of 2022, it looks increasingly like it might not happen this year either.
At some point, somebody has to be judged responsible for the failure of this presumed juggernaut to click in a division populated by the likes of the Guardians, Tigers, Twins and Royals. After all, Chicago’s 2022 payroll is $60 million higher than any of those other teams. Hahn this year will pay his on-field personnel only about $10 million less than the combined payrolls of his two closest competitors, the Guardians and Twins.
There was a brief window when it looked like Hahn might actually have pulled off a restoration of the White Sox to division dominance. With those pickups at the team’s core, the Sox reached postseason play in the COVID year, then got back there as division champions in 2021, when they won 93 regular-season games.
But both postseason runs ended abruptly, the Sox being ousted by Oakland in three games in 2020 and by Houston in four games last year.
This year, Chicago has languished around .500 all season. The Sox enter play Thursday night four games behind Cleveland in the division race and four behind Seattle in the Wild Card race.
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Obviously there’s no reason to give up on the White Sox’ 2022 chances just yet. But combine the open-ended status of Hahn’s contract with the team’s .461 winning percentage since Hahn became GM, toss in the high 2022 expectations and the potential for a sub-.500 season on the South Side, and it would be no surprise if a failed Sox regular season was followed by a front office house-cleaning.