2022 MLB front office rankings: The National League West
For any new MLB front office executive, the dream scenario is to take an excellent talent base and improve it. That’s precisely what Brandon Gomes did with the Los Angeles Dodgers.
Gomes was named general manager last fall, relieving his boss, team president Andrew Friedman, of those responsibilities. It turned out to be a clear case where two heads were better than one.
The Friedman-Gomes combo improved the Dodgers by 11.7 WAA, easily the best total of any team in MLB. Combine that with the mammoth talent base, which worked out to +22.9 WAA, that Gomes inherited from Friedman and you understand how the Dodgers won a franchise-record 111 games.
The analysis that follows is an assessment of the impact each NL West 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.
Gomes’ addition was the only change in the upper echelons of any of the division’s front office leadership structure. Here are the heads of the other four teams as those offices impacted 2022.
Arizona: Mike Hazen, executive vice president and general manager.
Colorado: Bill Schmidt, senior vice president and general manager.
San Diego: A.J. Preller, president of baseball operations and general manager.
San Francisco: Farhan Zaidi, president of baseball operations; Scott Harris, general manager.
From best to worst, here’s an assessment of the work of the five National League West front office systems and how they impacted their MLB teams.
Andrew Friedman and Brandon Gomes, Los Angeles Dodgers
Impact: +11.9
Division rank: first
MLB rank: first
Before he ever did a thing, Gomes was handed the contracts of Mookie Betts, Tony Gonsolin, Clayton Kershaw, Will Smith, both Turners (Justin and Trea), Julio Urias, Max Muncy and Walker Buehler. That was more than enough talent to dominate the West even if he did nothing.
Gomes not only did something, he did a lot. The signing of free agent Freddie Freeman away from Atlanta turned out to be a +3.8 plum, one of the five most productive roster moves of the season.
Gomes complemented that by signing unheralded pitcher Tyler Anderson, a move that proved sagacious when Anderson went 15-5 with a 2.57 ERA and +2.8 WAA. Then he stole outfielder Trayce Thompson from the Tigers in a fire sale, a deal that blossomed into 13 home runs and another 1.8 WAA.
Overall, the Los Angeles Dodgers made just 33 moves impacting MLB players, and Gomes turned an extraordinary 18 of those into positives for L.A. A dozen of those moves involved transactions with other general managers, and an imposing 11 of those 12 worked out to the benefit of the Dodgers.
In fact, Friedman and Gomes ran the most productive trade organization in baseball, as measured by net impact, in 2022. With the signings of Freeman and Anderson, the Dodger front office was second behind only the Mets in net free agent impact.
The Dodgers were only 10th in net far system impact … but no resume is perfect.
Farhan Zaidi and Scott Harris, San Francisco Giants
Impact: +0.6
Division rank: second
MLB rank: 10th
Coming off their 107-win season and division title, Zaidi and Harris may have felt some pressure to keep pace with the Dodgers entering 2022. Their performance was nothing if not peripatetic, involving moves that impacted 57 major leaguers.
A respectable 24 of those moves aided the Giants, against 28 that were negative (and five neutral). For the Giants, the problem wasn’t something they did wrong, but all the things their rivals to the south did right.
Zaidi and Harris focused on talent acquisition, both in trades and free agency. They obtained a division-high 17 players in transactions with other front office. But those moves were largely insignificant: none moved the talent needle by as much as one WAA in either direction, and the net change due to all 17 was just -1.8 WAA.
The same was not true of free agent activity. Pitcher Carlos Rodon came over from Chicago’s South Side and starred: a 14-8 record and 2.88 ERA in 31 starts. That was good for +3.9 WAA. Alex Cobb, a journeyman right-hander, signed and produced a 3.78 ERA in 28 starts, adding +1.3 WAA.
As a group, San Francisco’s 15 free agent signings produced +4.2 WAA to the Giants’ cause.
Still, the -3.1 WAA that the front office gave back in free agents they let walk to the open market — notably pitchers Kevin Gausman, Jose Quintana and Johnny Cueto — offset much of the free agent additions and left the Giants front office 10th in net free agent impact.
They ranked ninth in net trade impact and 12th in farm system impact. There were nine system products promoted in 2022, of which blooming closer Camilo Doval, +1.0, was the most significant.
Mike Hazen, Arizona Diamondbacks
Impact: -1.7
Division rank: third
MLB rank: 14th
Hazen’s best trait was knowing which players to dump. He jettisoned 16 former Diamondbacks, either in deals with other front office executives or via free agency, and those departures improved Hazen’s rating by a collectively 7.0 WAA.
You did not want to touch a player with a Diamondback connection. Pittsburgh acquired Josh VanMeter at season’s start and the Pirates were rewarded with VanMeter’s -1.1 WAA contribution. The Rangers signed Kole Calhoun, who the D-Backs allowed to go to free agency, and Calhoun laid down a .196 average and -2.9 WAA for Texas. Hazen sent David Peralta to Tampa Bay in late July and Peralta produced a .652 OPS and -0.9 WAA down the stretch for the Rays.
When it came to actually procuring talent, Hazen’s record was less laudatory. He brought in eight players by trade at a net impact of -1.0 WAA. His nine free agent signings cost -5.3 WAA, and 17 rookies netted -2.4. Seth Beer got off to a great start, homering for an April win on National Beer Day, but did nothing the rest of the season and ended up at -1.3 WAA. Fellow rookie Luis Frias was -1.3.
All the bad players Hazen traded away allowed Arizona’s front office to finish sixth in net trade impact. But the D-Backs were a more ordinary 18th in both net free agent and farm system impact.
Hazen did a good job knowing who to unload, but a poor job of knowing who to bring in. Until that changes, Arizona isn’t going anywhere.
A.J. Preller, San Diego Padres
Impact: -3.3
Division rank: fourth
MLB rank: 17th
If this was a publicity contest, Preller’s front office would easily lead the league. His trades acquiring Juan Soto, Josh Bell, Josh Hader and, to a lesser extent Sean Manaea, all were headline-grabbers.
On the field, however, all the ink generated by Preller didn’t translate. The +1.1 WAA Soto contributed was offset by the -1.1 liability that Bell represented. Manaea, who was pummeled from start to finish by the Dodgers, cost San Diego -2.2 WAA, and Hader cost another -0.8.
Overall, the dozen players Preller traded for actually hampered San Diego’s effort to keep pace with the Dodgers by -5.5 WAA. You wouldn’t have guessed it reading the social media assessments, but it’s true.
That was a large part of the reason why the Padres were the fifth team in 2022 — joining the Cardinals, Astros, Phillies and Rays — to qualify for postseason play despite a negative contribution from their front office.
Overall, Preller’s front office made moves involving 55 major leaguers in 2022, of which 20 worked out in San Diego’s favor while 32 yielded a negative result. The Soto acquisition notwithstanding, San Diego ranked only 18th in net trade impact, standing fourth in both free agent and farm system impact.
In the end, what saved Preller was the residual talent base he had signed during previous seasons, and which continued to serve the Padres in 2022. That residual base — Yu Darvish, Jake Cronenworth, Blake Snell, Joe Musgrove, Manny Machado and Ha-Seong Kim — combined to contribute +15.4 WAA in 2022, more than enough residual talent to survive both the loss of Fernando Tatis and Preller’s unproductive moves and keep the Padres in playoff contention.
Bill Schmidt, Colorado Rockies
Impact: -8.0
Division rank: fifth
MLB rank: tie for 24th
It’s challenging to find something nice to say about Bill Schmidt’s second full season running the Rockies’ front office.
Rockies front offices perennially struggle to figure out a strategy to keep up with the Dodgers and cope with the variable that is Denver’s altitude. Since the franchise’s creation in time for the 1993 season, Rockies front office execs have produced only a dozen seasons of positive contribution, contrasted with 18 negative seasons, seven of them now in succession.
In 2022, Schmidt played it conservatively, making just 30 moves involving major league talent. The problem was that only eight of those moves improved the Rockies in 2022, while 21 hurt the cause. The loss to free agency of Trevor Story was the headline change. Story signed with Boston and produced a 1.2 WAA there.
To replace that and less publicized losses, Schmidt’s preference was to sign or re-sign veterans, and as a general rule that strategy did not work out. Some examples:
- He re-signed pitcher Jhoulys Chacin and for his money got a 7.61 ERA in 35 relief appearances, good for a -1.8 WAA.
- He traded for outfielder Randall Grichuk, whose .259 average and sub-standard defense worked out to -1.5 WAA.
- He signed free agent pitcher Chad Kuhl and gave Kuhl 27 starts. Those 27 starts produced a 6-11 record and 5.72 ERA, good for a -1.2 WAA.
- Free agent pitcher Alex Colomé came in from Minnesota and ran up a 5.74 ERA in 53 games. That translated to -1.1 WAA.
Overall, Schmidt’s front office ranked 14th in net trade impact but 28th in net free agent impact and only 22nd in net farm system impact.