Recap: How the front office rating works
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 postseason.
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 postseason. 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. 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.
9. Milwaukee Brewers, Matt Arnold, senior vice president and general manager, +3.2
The impact of Arnold’s most important move since the end of the 2023 postseason can’t be quantified.
When Craig Counsell abandoned the Brewers for high-dollar living on Chicago’s North Side, Arnold promoted Counsell’s chief aide, Pat Murphy, to manager. Nobody has developed a means of reducing a field manager’s contribution to a number, so this will have to suffice: The Brewers were nobody’s preseason pick to win the NL Central, yet they took it by a full 10 games.
Some of that — maybe most of it — has to be attributable to Murphy’s leadership. Voters thought so, anyway; they named him Manager of the Year.
As for Arnold, his task was made even more challenging by the inclusion of staff ace but free agent-to-be Corbin Burnes in a trade with Baltimore. It is instructive how Arnold used that deal to make baseball lemonade out of lemons.
Burnes turned in a +1.7 WAA season for the Orioles; by any measure, that’s a big hit to the Brewers and Arnold's bottom line in these rankings. Except, Arnold got starting third baseman Joey Ortiz and reliever D.L. Hall in return, and they combined to recover a half game of that lost value. Damage reduced.
Five most impactful Arnold moves
Transaction | Net Impact (Wins Above Average) |
|---|---|
Promoted Jackson Chourio | +1.9 |
Signed free agent Rhys Hoskins | -1.9 |
Traded Corbin Burnes to Baltimore | -1.7 |
Released Rowdy Tellez to free agency | +1.6 |
Acquired Bryan Hudson from the Dodgers | +1.6 |
Since the conclusion of the 2023 postseason, Arnold’s moves impacted 55 major league players, and their impact basically split down the middle: 24 helped Milwaukee, 25 hurt them, and six were neutral.
Long-term, the most impactful obviously was the promotion of outfielder Jackson Chourio, who started slowly but blossomed into a Rookie of the Year finalist and a team leader. But Arnold did more than promote Chourio; he tied him up through 2033 at what could turn out to be the bargain rate of $142.5 million (if the club options in the ninth and tenth years of the deal are picked up).
Arnold’s other steal was more subtle. In January, he talked the Dodgers out of reliever Bryan Hudson at the cost of a minor leaguer. Hudson appeared in 43 games and posted a 1.73 ERA across 62 innings, making him — by Wins Above Average at least — the Brewers’ most impactful pitcher.
Arnold did have his failures. He took a flyer on free agent Rhys Hoskins, who had missed all of 2023 in Philadelphia due to a preseason injury, and got burned in the process.
His acquisition of Jake Bauers from the Yankees also flopped, cementing first base as the Brewers’ black hole position. Between them, Hoskins and Bauers cost the Brewers 3.4 games worth of value.
This offseason, the Brewers have continued to play small-ball, signing some bargain bin free agents and swinging a few minor trades. Their most notable move was something of a redux of last offseason's Burnes trade, as they flipped pending free agent reliever Devin Williams to the Yankees in exchange for Nestor Cortes Jr. and Caleb Durbin.
Previous Rankings
10. New York Yankees, Brian Cashman, senior vice president and general manager, +3.0
9. Milwaukee Brewers, Matt Arnold, senior vice president and general manager, +3.2
Next: 8. San Francisco Giants, Farhan Zaidi, president of baseball operations, Pete Putila, general manager, +3.8