How the front office rating system works
It’s the job of the front office to assess a team’s needs and acquire talent filling those needs. The front offices that do the best job still may not produce a winner—they may have started from too deep a talent hole. But they deserve credit for producing improvement.
This is one in a series of assessments of the performances of front offices for the 2024 season. Each front office is given a score based on the total Wins Above Average of the players they either traded for, signed via free agency or extension, or promoted from their farm system, since the conclusion of the 2023 post-season.
A front office’s score also includes the total Wins Above Average of players traded away or lost to free agency since the end of the 2023 post-season. The front offices are being presented in order of their total value from No. 30 (worst) all the way to No. 1 (best).
These ratings do not necessarily reflect the final standings. As it happens, two of the 10 worst front office performances this season were delivered by playoff teams while two of the four best were produced by the front offices of non-playoff teams.
How can that be? The reason is that front offices are measured based only on the talent they acquired or lost during the past 12 months. Players on multi-year contracts, or already under team control, don’t count toward this rating.
30. Los Angeles Angels, Perry Minasian, general manager, -14.8
The history of the world is filled with stories of love affairs gone bad, so perhaps it’s not surprising that Angels owner Arte Moreno gave GM Perry Minasian a two-year extension just this past August.
Moreno may love Minasian, but Minasian’s record as GM does not show a lot of love for the Angels or their fans. Since taking charge of team operations prior to the 2021 season, Minasian’s teams have never finished above .500.
The Minasian-era Angels were at their worst this past season, going 63-99 and finishing last in the AL West, six games behind the Oakland A’s.
It’s easy—and perhaps somewhat fair—to divert the blame for that showing from Minasian. Moreno didn’t give him enough money to re-sign Shohei Ohtani, who ran across town to the Dodgers and a World Series win. He inherited the disaster of an Anthony Rendon contract, as well as the diminishing returns of the 12-year deal that keeps Mike Trout locked in Anaheim through 2030. Blame Minasian’s predecessor, Billy Eppler, for those payroll-consuming mistakes.
It took Shohei Ohtani ONE SEASON to win a World Series after leaving the Angels.
— nugget chef (@jayhaykid) October 31, 2024
But that still leaves the bulk of the responsibility of four straight seasons of failure on Minasian’s front office. Since the end of the 2023 postseason, 61 major leaguers came to Anaheim or left from it for other MLB venues. Even discounting the Ohtani loss (which shouldn't be discounted by any means, but we’ll do it for the sake of the argument) the net impact on Angels’ expenditures was still -7.1 games as measured by Wins Above Average.
Of those 61 moves, only 20 worked to the benefit of the Angels, while 34 were negative and seven neutral. Worse, only two of those 61 moves produced a net positive impact on the Angels' fortunes in excess of half of one game. For the record, those two exceptions were pitchers Ben Joyce, a mid-season call up, and Jose Soriano, each contributing +1.1 WAA.
In stark contrast, Minasian brought to the organization a whopping 14 players who produced values of minus one-half game or worse, topped by outfielder Willie Calhoun at -1.0. Calhoun replaced Randal Grichuk, who was let go to free agency over the winter. Grichuk signed with the Arizona Diamondbacks and produced a helpful +1.3 WAA this past season.
It's clear that for all the work Minasian put into building the roster, the Angels would have been better off if he hadn't done anything at all. Hence, he earns the last spot on our list.
No. 30. Los Angeles Angels, Perry Minasian general manager -14.38
Next: T-28, Colorado Rockies, Bill Schmidt, senior vice president and general manager, -11.5