"… the reason you win or lose is darn near always the same – pitching.” — Earl Weaver
Adam Jones; my #1 fantasy draft pick in 2014. Photo unk.
As with years past … feel free to skip this post if you don’t care about fantasy. I know for certain that reading about someone elses’s fantasy sports team can be a bit grating. But, if you do play fantasy i’m sure you’ll at least appreciate reading the selections and then looking at the team’s strength analysis at the end.
I’ll include a jump line so your RSS feeds aren’t blown out either.
I’ll bet you don’t know who this is, but I think he’s baseball’s best GM. Photo AP via mail.com
I was listening to a baseball podcast this past week about General Managers in baseball and heard an interesting fact; it has now been more than two years since an MLB General Manager has been fired. Sure enough, the last GM fired was Houston’s Ed Wade in November of 2011. There is a GM with less service time (Rick Hahn of the White Sox), but he rose to take over the job for long time GM Kenny Williams, who was promoted to executive VP of the team. So all in all there’s been decent stability among baseball executives in the shorter term.
I’ve had a draft version of a “GM Rankings” post written for nearly three years. Why so long? Because I started the post, got distracted, and then no less than seven general manager positions were filled/replaced in two very hectic weeks following the end of the 2011 season. There’s no way you can judge how well a GM has done with just a few months on the job, so there was no point in trying to rank the GMs when a quarter of them were un-rankable.
Well, now we’re two plus years onwards from October 2011, each of those seven new GMs has had two seasons and three off-seasons to show their vision, and I think its time to revisit my rankings.
Below is an attempt to rank the GMs, #1 to #30. Beware: this is a massive post. 6,000+ words. I may have over-done it a little bit.
To me, a successful GM balances several factors all at once:
Now for the caveats to keep in mind to the above GM goals:
I created a GM rankings spreadsheet where I track all sorts of interesting information that you use to judge GMs (the link is also along the right hand side of the blog), and where I tried to quantitatively judge the 30 GMs. The spreadsheet has GM tenure, market size, ownership meddling factors, Farm system rankings, 2012 and 2013 payroll versus W/L rankings, plus my attempts to quantify three facets of a GM’s job: MLB success, Trades and FA moves and the Farm system. I will freely admit; i am paying significantly more attention to performance over the past three years than performance over the past 10. Maybe that’s fair, may be not. But it hurts a long-time GM like Brian Cashman who guided his team to the playoffs year after year (but, see Cashman’s write up for my reservations on GMs of massive payroll teams).
I’m classifying the GMs into rough tiers:
It is really hard to rank these guys 1 to 30 without someone nit picking the order, but I would argue with you if you told me that some one in the bottom tier was actually “good.” It wasn’t as easy to do these rankings as I thought it would be; in fact every time I’ve come back to this post i’ve ended up moving around the GMs, to the point where I’m just declaring victory and publishing. I like the top and bottom of these rankings, but if you wanted to argue that the guy I’ve got ranked 22nd really should be 18th, then I probably won’t disagree.
Lets give it a shot:
The Elite
1. John Mozeliak, St. Louis. What more can you say about the model franchise of baseball and its leader/architect? The #1 farm system last year, a huge percentage of its players home-grown, in the playoffs three of the last four years, a win and a runner-up in that time, and all while maintaining a payroll outside the top 10 in the league. This team survived the FA loss of the game’s best player (Albert Pujols) by returning to the playoffs the subsequent year and leading the league in wins in 2013. Can’t ask for much more than that. Mozeliak is my choice for the best GM in the game over two other more famous candidates in the elite category.
2. Andrew Friedman, Tampa Bay. Is there any argument that Friedman is this high? He took over in 2005 and within three years had the league’s best record. They’ve won 90+ games four years in a row in the league’s best division. He’s done this despite routinely having one of the lowest payrolls in the game, despite off-loading talent as soon as it becomes pricey, by stockpiling draft picks (11 of the first 75 picks in the 2011 draft), and by signing his key players early on to incredibly club-friendly contracts (see the deals that Evan Longoria and David Price signed pre-arbitration). In fact, I daresay that the success the Rays have had in the draft was a driving force behind richer owners (hello, Mr. Jerry Reinsdorf) pushing for bonus limits on the amateur market. In 2013 the team had the 3rd lowest payroll in the game but still made the playoffs ahead of the Yankees (who spent nearly FOUR TIMES as much as the Rays). Many would say these facts by default put Friedman #1 and I wouldn’t argue; only the drop-off in his farm system this year keeps him from overtaking Mozeliak. Call these two GMs 1 and 1-a.
3. Billy Beane, Oakland. The league’s 2nd longest tenured GM is likely to retire as its longest, since he owns a stake in the team and has re-made his approach to building teams in the last couple of years to great success. This ownership stake affords Beane the job security that he wouldn’t have otherwise, and has afforded him the time he needed to find his next “market inefficiency.” After some lean years following the “Moneyball” period in the mid 2000s, Beane has turned the A’s into a two-time defending AL West defending champion (a division with two of the most profligate spending teams in the game). His new team-building method seems to be around wheeling-and-dealing, and he’s been good at it. He turned over a significant amount of his 2012 team and won even more games in 2013. The ding on Beane may be his farm system; Oakland has struggled to develop players lately and some may argue that Beane’s ranking should be slightly lower as a result. I’ll say this though; being successful in the league when routinely putting out payrolls in the $55M-$60M range (where his 2012 and 2013 teams sat) by default makes you one of the best in my book.
The Excellent
4. Jon Daniels, Texas Rangers. Texas made the 2010 World Series with the 27th highest payroll in the major leagues. That in and among itself is enough to earn Daniels his street cred. However, his 2013 payroll had ballooned to $125M and they got unlucky by missing out on the playoffs by one game in 2013. Otherwise two World Series trips in four years is still nothing to shake a stick at, and the fact that they didn’t win game 6 of the 2011 World Series still amazes me. Daniels’ reputation is on the line though in a big way; his moves for Prince Fielder, for Shin-Soo Choo and for Alex Rios will be tested in 2014. The team will need everything it can get out of its (mostly) home grown rotation thanks to unfortunate injuries already suffered this year (Derek Holland tripping over his own dog). I give Daniels a ton of credit for accomplishing what he did with a $65M payroll; can he continue to do it with a $130M payroll? The bar only gets higher.
5. Walt Jocketty, Cincinnati. I still wonder how he got fired in St. Louis. He made the playoffs 6 years out of 7, including a World Series win. Then the year following he gets canned. In Cincinnati, he inherited a reigning NL MVP Joey Votto but made some shrewd acquisitions (Mat Latos, Aroldis Chapman), and drafted well (including selecting Mike Leake, who has yet to spend a day in the minors). The Reds play in a small market but have made the playoffs 3 of the last 4 years and continue to develop good players (Billy Hamilton and Tony Cingrani being the latest two studs). Jocketty is in a lofty rank now; we’ll see how things go after the loss of Shin-Soo Choo this past off-season and the slight turning-over of the roster we’re now seeing. If the Reds continue to make the playoffs, Jocketty should continue to get a ton of credit.
6. Ben Cherington, Boston Red Sox. Normally I’m really skeptical of GMs for teams with $175M payrolls who have success. But it is difficult to argue with what Cherington has done since taking over the reigns. He completely undid a ton of the damage that his predecessor had done by offloading two horrible contracts (Carl Crawford and Adrian Gonzalez) and one malcontent (Josh Beckett) on the Dodgers and actually receiving prospect value back. He has quickly built the Boston farm system back to where it is one of the best in the game (they have as many top 100 prospects as any organization out there). And they just won the World Series. Cherington loses some credit for the disastrous Bobby Valentine hiring that led to the even more disastrous 2012 season … but he also recognized the faults with both the team and the manager and led a complete 180 degree turnaround. And I laughed at Cherington’s almost comical chasing of closers (as documented in this space in June 2013). But a title erases a lot of criticism. Boston remains well positioned going forward but will be depending very heavily on the fruits of their farm system in 2014 and beyond. If Boston turns these high value prospects into another playoff appearance while driving down payroll, Cherington’s ranking will only rise.
7. Mike Rizzo, Washington Nationals. Rizzo took over for the disgraced Jim Bowden in March of 2009 and had quite a job ahead of him. The team on the field was on their way towards losing 100 games for the second year in a row and the farm system was dead last in the majors. What has Rizzo done since? The team improved 30 games in the win column between 2010 and 2012, the farm system was considered the best in the game just two years on from Rizzo’s hiring (it should be said, thanks to two straight #1 overall picks resulting in two of the most dynamic players in the last 20 years being available to us), and now has two drafts and two off-seasons worth of work under his belt. He has brought a new mind-set to the draft, focusing on quick-to-the-majors college arms instead of nebulous tools-y high school players. He also has managed to work with the sport’s most notorious agent (Scott Boras) and successfully handled the two most high-profile draftees (arguably) in the history of the game. He has completely re-made the Nats roster in the past two years (only 3 members of the opening day roster 2009 team are still with the franchise). I’ve questioned his roster construction at times, feeling like he over-emphasized defenders at the expense of offense (running Michael Morse and Josh Willingham out of town), and he obsessed over a leadoff/CF type until he got one (Denard Span, trading away our best starting pitching prospect at the time), but a 98-win season smooths over a lot of criticism. Other pundits place Rizzo even higher than I have; 7th seems like a good spot to be until we see if this team can get back to the playoffs. If the Nats falter again in 2014 and don’t achieve something in this “window,” Rizzo’s tenure and the 2012 season may be viewed simply as an aberration instead of a well built team.
8. Frank Wren, Atlanta Braves. A couple years ago you would probably have Wren ranked in the middle of the pack at best. He clearly botched both ends of the Mark Teixeira deals, essentially turning Texas regulars Elvis Andrus, Neftali Feliz, Matt Harrison and catcher Jarrod Saltalamacchia into a year of Teixeira and Casey Kotchman. Imagine how good Atlanta would be right now if they still had the 3 core members that remain in Texas. That being said, you cannot argue with where the Braves have been going. With middle-of-the-road payrolls and an awful TV deal the Braves have a team with a lot of home-grown talent that won the NL East by 10 games last year. His rotation is young and home-grown (Minor, Beachy, Medlen, Teheran), his team full of home-grown talent (with Freeman, Heyward and Simmons leading the way). And they have the best bullpen in the game. On the down-side, there are questions about some of his recent signings (BJ Upton and Uggla in particular), the farm system hasn’t quite come back from its 2010 rankings (thanks to so much of the talent it generated), and I’m not sure anyone really likes Atlanta’s 2013 off-season. So, we’ll give Wren credit for the past few years and indicate a note of caution going forward.
9. Neil Huntington, Pittsburgh Pirates. I’m not sure if I’ve got him too high, but I’ll say this: after getting Pittsburgh to the playoffs (and a winning record) for the first time in a generation, Huntington has them in the right direction. His moves to build last year’s team were excellent, the team has a ton of home-grown talent yet still has one of the best farm systems in the game, and should continue to be a success in the NL Central.
10. Sandy Alderson, New York Mets. How can anyone involved with the New York Mets over the past 10 seasons be considered a success? Because long-time baseball insider Alderson has done well with what he was handed and has the Mets heading in the right direction. In the past three years their farm system has grown in leaps and bounds, going from the bottom third to nearly a top 5 system. He got great value in trade for R.A. Dickey, has drafted and developed well, and we started to see the fruits of that player development with last year’s all-star game starter Matt Harvey. He’s finally rid of the awful contracts that his predecessor handed him ($43.6M of the team’s $93M payroll last year was dead money to just two guys: Johan Santana and Jason Bay. Almost 50%) and has bought conservatively this off-season while Harvey recovers and more of his young arms matriculate. If the Mets ownership ever decides to start spending money again and this team’s prospects come to fruition, they could be a force.
11. Brian Sabean, San Francisco Giants. Sabean is the longest tenured GM in the game, is unabashedly “old school” and is consistently mocked for his signings and moves. I thought his Tim Lincecum deal was ridiculous, I couldn’t believe the amount of money they guaranteed Hunter Pence, and more than a few people are questioning the Michael Morse deal. San Francisco’s farm system is weak and has been for years (after contributing MVPs and Cy Young winners, it should be said). To all these naysayers I say this: Two World Series titles in the last four years. The goal of every team is to win the title, and his teams have done it twice in four years. The Yankees have one title in the last 15 years. So you have to give Sabean some credit. 11th seems about right. Not too high, not too low. He’d have been much higher had his team not imploded in 2013.
12. Chris Antonetti, Cleveland Indians. Antonelli has subscribed to the same “wheeling and dealing” mechanism for building teams that Billy Beane has done, and it turned a perennial doormat Indians team into a 2013 playoff team. They play in a small market and have an $80M payroll, and Antonelli has taken their farm system from awful to respectable in the last three years. So the system is improving as is the on-the-field product. So far, so good in Cleveland for Antonelli’s tenure. I’m hesitant to push him much higher because i’m convinced the Indians succeeded in 2013 on the backs of several very awful divisional rivals (for example; the Indians were 17-2 on the season versus the White Sox but only 4-15 versus the Tigers, quite a swing for a 90-win team; if they were that legitimate a team they would have been much closer to .500 against their divisional winner). So slightly above the median looks good.
The Middle-Ground
13. Jeff Luhnow, Houston Astros. Three years ago Houston was an 88-loss team with a $90M payroll and the 29th ranked farm system. To his credit, Luhnow has reversed at least two of those factors in a big way; he has cleared the decks of the awful contracts that boat-anchored the Astros under his predecessor. Of course, at the same time he’s turned the Astros into a 110-loss team and, for the first time since the dead-ball era, last place three years running. So what has Luhnow done? Inside of two years he’s gone from the worst farm system to the best on the backs of #1 overall picks Carlos Correa and Mark Appel. Soon they’ll likely add Carlos Rodon to that stable, giving this team a fearsome set of players to roll-out within a couple years. So how do we judge Luhnow? Right about in the middle; he’s set out to do what he needed to do; if his foundation leads to on-the-field success Luhnow will be counted among the best GMs in the game for laying out the roadmap and sticking to it.
14. Brian Cashman, New York Yankees. Some say that just the mere fact that Cashman has survived as long as he has in the shadow of the Steinbrenner family ownership of the Yankees should be proof enough that he is among the best GMs in the game, and certainly higher ranked than he is here. Fair enough. But here’s the inescapable facts: his farm system is deteriorating, the most significant player on the 2014 team actually developed at home seems to be Brett Gardner, they had a $225M payroll last year and didn’t make the playoffs, their rotation will pivot mostly on a 40-yr old’s career renaissance, and their starting 2014 infield played a combined 200 games last year. And they’re being saved only by the grace of Bud Selig‘s hatred for Alex Rodriguez, whose suspension “saves” the team $25M this year (quickly spent on their new “#3 starter” Masahiro Tanaka, to whom they guaranteed more than $175M dollars). I dunno; maybe Cashman should be lower. They have made the playoffs 4 of the last 6 years and have a title, and Cashman’s early tenure record speaks for itself .. but at what point do you notice that the team hasn’t done very much since the “core four” have entered their decline phases and begin to wonder if Cashman isn’t just a guy with a big checkbook instead of a good GM?
15. Dave Dombrowski, Detroit Tigers. Lots of on-field success thanks to Dombrowski sticking to his plan; he took over the year the Tigers lost 119 games. It is worth noting that 3 years later they were in the world series. Now he’s gotten them into the playoffs three years running, to which he’s due plenty of credit. But his farm system has hit rock bottom, he’s spending a ton of money, and he’s making very questionable moves. The industry panned his Doug Fister move (even if it seemed to greatly benefit the Nats) and people questioned his Prince Fielder for Ian Kinsler move. They were weird moves for a “win now” team. Perhaps I should give Dombrowski more credit, but his 2013-14 off-season knocked him down a number of pegs for me. If they miss out on the playoffs to an up-and-coming Royals team, he’ll suddenly be on the hot-seat.
16. Ned Colletti, Los Angeles Dodgers. Seriously, how do you judge the job Colletti is doing right now? His team’s payroll went from $95M in 2012 to more than $216M in 2013. He’s got $57M tied up in three outfielders not named Yasiel Puig right now. You almost got the impression that Colletti called up Boston and just said, “Hey, I’ll take every sh*tty contract off your hands right now … i’ve got money to spend and I don’t care how we spend it!” On the bright side, somehow the Dodgers have kept a reasonable ranking with their farm system throughout all of this, but the skill involved with paying everyone on your team $20M/year is close to nil. As with Cashman, I wonder if Colletti is ranked too high even here.
17. Dayton Moore, Kansas City Royals. Other mid-market teams (Oakland, Tampa, Pittsburgh) have shown a ton more accomplishment on the field than Kansas City; why hasn’t Moore’s teams done better? He’s been in his job nearly 8 seasons and the team spun its wheels for seven of them. Signings that didn’t pay off and fizzled farm system talents defined this team for years. Finally Moore went all-in, trading the best prospect in the game (Wil Myers) for a package of pitchers to help the Royals get over the hump. Between 2012 and 2013 they added $21M in payroll and these players and gained 14 games in the win column; just enough for … 3rd place. The industry entirely believes Moore was fleeced by Tampa Bay, and the trade looked so bad at the time that pundits wondered if Moore wasn’t getting some pressure from above to “win more now or get canned.” But it didn’t take Myers but the next season to win the rookie of the year award, and he may be a player that Kansas City fans rue for a generation. I think Moore may not be long for the job, and with good reason; why hasn’t he been able to win when guys like Huntington and Beane have?
18. Terry Ryan, Minnesota Twins. Ryan has been with Minnesota for-ever; hired in 1994. He stepped aside and then was re-hired in 2011, and is now in a rebuilding phase. The team let go one of its faces of the franchise last off season (Justin Morneau) and is going to begin a big youth movement this year. They’re going to be bad, but perhaps not Houston bad thanks to a couple of (odd?) starting pitcher signings. Help is coming; Ryan has built on of the best farm systems in the game and it features two of the top 5 prospects out there (Byron Buxton and Miguel Sano). Perhaps it isn’t fair to rank Ryan here with Luhnow higher, but Ryan was partly responsible for the downfall of this team and the abhorrent starting rotation of last year. But once their MVP-grade talents arrive at the majors, Ryan’s work of rebuilding the farm system should be rewarded.
The Concerning
19. Josh Byrnes, San Diego. Byrnes inherited a 90-win team that surprised but which was getting ready to hit a transitional stage. Byrnes got some good prospects from the Adrian Gonzalez deal and some more in the Mat Latos deal, but they havn’t turned into wins on the Three straight years of 71-76 wins has spirits dampened in San Diego. Now their MLB team looks poor, the farm system is good but drifting, and they’re talking about another rebuilding effort. He’s only a couple years in but things aren’t looking up; his division includes a team that is spending 4 times what he can spend.
20. Kevin Towers, Arizona. So here’s my summary of Towers’ tenure in Arizona so far: he continues to drive away players and prospects who aren’t “gritty” enough for him, trading them for 50 cents on the dollar. His farm system has gone from good to middle of the road. His payroll is rising … and yet his team is winning the same number of games. And yet both he and Kirk Gibson just got contract extensions. Why exactly does anyone think Towers and Gibson are doing a good job right now? How many more games would they have lost had they not magically found a 6-win player in Paul Goldschmidt (an 8th round pick) last year?
21. Jed Hoyer (Theo Epstein), Chicago Cubs. I know Hoyer is the GM, but lets be honest; this is Epstein’s team. The Cubs hired Epstein for him to re-make the franchise as he did in Boston. Except that Epstein left Boston in a huge mess, with a slew of very bad contracts and an even worse clubhouse. Now he’s come to Chicago and made some questionable moves (the Edwin Jackson signing, the Anthony Rizzo fan-boy pursuit, etc) while not making other more obvious moves (why is Jeff Samardzija still on this team if they’re “rebuilding?”). To their credit, they got value for Alfonso Soriano, only one of the most untradeable players in the game. And they’ve gotten a pass to rebuild the farm system, which is now ranked in the top 5 in the game and should start to bear fruit. Now, that farm system is loaded with hitters, and with Wrigley’s comfy stadium the Cubs may be offensive juggernauts in no time, but they still need pitching. How will the Hoyer/Epstein team handle that? Hopefully not with more signings like the Jackson deal.
22. Michael Hill, Miami Marlins. The one huge caveat that goes with the Miami GM job is this: Jeffrey Loria is probably the most hands on owner in the game, and you almost can’t judge this GM’s ability based on who is calling the shots. The only other owner who seems to have as much pull is, ironically, ranked next. Miami loaded up for 2012 in their new stadium and had completely dismantled things before August. Now they’re a $50M payroll team with some superstar prospects .. but a middling farm system and questionable direction.
23. Dan Duquette, Baltimore Orioles. Duquette has had an odd off-season; his owner 86’d two of his signings thanks to questioning the “medicals,” which insiders point out is Peter Angelos‘ method of nixing deals he doesn’t like. Must be frustrating. Instead Duquette is now signing every re-tread FA who can’t find a job thanks to the CBA’s draft pick compensation issues, punting draft pick after draft pick. The O’s did make the playoffs in 2012, thanks to an unsustainable record in one-run games, and have had a decent run of success out of their farm system (Manny Machado should be mentioned in the same breath as Trout and Harper frankly), but are they on the right track to get back?
24. Dan O’Dowd/Bill Geivett, Colorado Rockies. The Rockies have a very unique front-office structure right now, resulting from an August 2012 shake-up that left industry insiders questioning the roles and the message coming from the team. Nonetheless, the direction of the Rockies leaves something to be desired. They’ve drifted on the field, employed questionable starting pitching usage strategies, and generally are treading water. Their farm system is starting to look up though; will that be enough to compete in a division with the Dodgers?
25. Alex Anthopolous, Toronto Blue Jays. Anthopolous took over for the maligned JP Ricciardi after the 2009 season. In the time since, he traded Roy Halladay, acquired Morrow, traded for Escobar and Jo-Jo Reyes, acquired Rajai Davis, and perhaps most impressively offloaded the albatross contract for Vernon Wells. He had an 85-win team in the hardest division in baseball with a 70M payroll for 2011. Then he went for it, emptying the farm system (which was one of the league’s best in 2011) to acquire the likes of R.A. Dickey and the whole slew of ex-Marlins. Now he’s got a massive payroll, an underperforming team and empty cupboards in the minors. All the good work he did to prepare Toronto for battle in the AL east has gone for naught unless last year was just a big huge adjustment period for all these newly acquired veterans.
The Underperforming
26. Doug Melvin, Milwaukee Brewers: Melvin is an interesting case; the Brewers purposely bottomed out their farm system to make a playoff run in 2011, the last year before they lost Prince Fielder and their fortunes would change. And change they have; the Brewer’s player development efforts have not moved off the bottom of the league (their farm system is either last or dead last on every pundit list) while their on-the-field record has dropped (they’ve gone from 96 to 83 to 74 wins in the last three years). Now they’re the 4th best team in their division and it isn’t close, and it is unclear what their plan is going forward. They’ve got quality players at certain places, but have made odd signings (losing their 1st round pick last year to sign Kyle Lohse of all people). You can’t help the Ryan Braun situation, and they got unlucky with injuries (Corey Hart in particular) so perhaps this ranking is unfair. But I still feel like the Brewers are adrift in terms of strategy and thus Melvin’s ranked this low.
27. Jerry Dipoto, Los Angeles Angels. The worst or 2nd worst (along with Milwaukee) farm system in the majors for the past few years. One of the largest payrolls in the league giving them a 78-84 record last year. Over-paying for aging slugger (Albert Pujols) after aging slugger (Josh Hamilton) while inexplicably signing one of the worst statistical starters in the game to a multi-year deal (Joe Blanton) and entering last season with a clear and obvious rotation issue. Dipoto earned the absolute worst “quantitative grade” in my GM ranking xls, trying to measure the three GM factors of on-the-field success, farm system development and trades/FA signings. The only reason I don’t also rank him last is because i’m not entirely convinced that Dipoto isn’t a decent executive who’s being told by a highly-involved owner (Arte Moreno) to sign all these guys. But, there’s really no reason that a team playing in LA and who is spending three times what his divisional rival Oakland is spending isn’t consistently finishing ahead of them in the standings.
28. Rick Hahn (Kenny Williams), Chicago White Sox. What can you say? The White Sox lost 100 games with a $118M payroll last year and have had the worst (or near to it) farm system in the game for years. The White Sox organization is in a bad way, and i’m not sure why Williams’ stewardship was rewarded with the “promotion” to team president. They lost 18 games in the win column from 2012 to 2013 and it is hard to see how they’re going to be any better this year. It does seem though that they are undergoing a “rebuilding effort,” in that their payroll seems like it will be $40M less this year versus last and they’ve moved some of their bigger salaries in “rebuilding mode” moves (Alex Rios, Jake Peavy). So perhaps its slightly unfair to have Hahn so low, if he’s entering into a purposely bad period. Nonetheless; this set of executives got the White Sox where they are now, so their low ranking is earned.
29. Ruben Amaro, Philadelphia Phillies. I’ll admit that i’m probably biased here. While i’ve given credit to other GMs whose teams have had success in the past several years, i’ve not given Amaro the same benefit of the doubt. And that basically comes down to several, clear facts; Amaro has destroyed the Phillies with multiple long-term deals for declining players, most notably Ryan Howard‘s contract (widely considered the worst dollar for dollar contract in the game). His team 3rd highest payroll in 2013 and nearly lost 90 games. His recent FA moves have been laughable (Delmon Young and Michael Young? John Lannan as his sole pitching move last off-season? His ridiculous contract extension for Carlos Ruiz this past off-season?). His heels-in-the-ground obstinant refusal to adopt any understanding or acceptance for analytics or modern statistical approach to his job makes me wonder just how asleep at the wheel his owner is. He’s let his farm system lapse while his on-the-field product falters. He puts out mixed messages in regards to his direction (Cliff Lee mentioned in trade rumors? Are the Phillies going to rebuild or not?). But the coup-de-grace for me is the news that just came out that Amaro’s organization has purposely attempted to sabotage college kids who spurned the Phillies last summer, ratting them out to the NCAA out of pettiness, spite or vengeance. Despite their WS win and appearances in the last 6 years, I cannot for the life of me figure out why Amaro still has a job at this point.
30. Jack Zduriencik, Seattle Mariners. Zero playoff appearances in his tenure. His farm system has pushed out all the talent it apparently has to give and now is in the bottom third of the league with more than a few “busts” (notably Justin Smoak and Dustin Ackley vastly underperforming). A 90 loss team last year, and he’s just gotten done committing hundreds of millions of dollars in contracts yet likely has only improved his team a few wins, thanks to a fundamental lack of understanding of what it takes to build baseball lineups (he seems to be depending basically on 3 rookies in his rotation for 2014). And it seems that Zduriencik not only is poor at his job, but he may have depended on deception (if not outright fraud) to get it, thanks to the reporting of Geoff Baker at The Seattle Times last off-season. One only needs to look at his method of building teams to notice that he has no concept of defensive capabilities and he seems to collect 1b/DH types without consideration of how many runs they’ll be costing him thanks to sub-par defense (Michael Morse and Raul Ibanez at the corner OF positions last year, his plans to play Logan Morrison and Corey Hart in the OF this year). How long before Robinson Cano is a brooding $200M boat anchor on this team as they continue to lose 90 games year after year in a division dominated with better GMs and bigger payrolls? All these facts contribute to my ranking Zduriencik last.
Here’s some other links relevant to this discussion, for your perusal. Wiki’s list of all 30 GMs. Baseball America’s excellent Executive database. Scout.com’s Kiley McDaniel ranked the GMs by job security in Jan 2014. Buster Olney posted a “Peer Review” of GMs back in 2010, but its mostly obsolete with all the movement since. Still somewhat interesting to hear what GMs are saying about each other anonymously.
Finally some other rankings lists that I could find (and their top 5):
Thoughts? Think I have some guys too high and some too low? Discuss in the comments.
Andrelton Simmons put up what most consider the best defensive season of 2013. Photo via espn.go.com
The recent years have been a rise in all sorts of statistical analysis in the game of baseball (as we all know), and one of the more important areas of research has been the measurement and tracking of defensive metrics. The data we have at our disposal is not yet infallible, but the data has opened our eyes to the real impact that some major leaguers have on the defensive side of the ball.
We’re all quite familiar with the WAR-based arguments that have completely consumed last year’s AL MVP award voting as an example of modern statistics helping to shape the selection of a traditional award winner. However, up until 2013, the Gold Gloves remained an award that was given out without practically any consideration given to any advanced metric, and the awards have been embarassed in recent years with some amazingly inept selections. The two most laughable selections of recent memory were Rafael Palemeiro in 1999 (given a Gold Glove for his play at 1B despite the fact that he only played 28 games in the field that year) and Derek Jeter in 2010 (a year in which he posted a -5.1 UZR/150, was dead last among all 59 AL shortstops in Total Zone Total Fielding and had the selection was openly mocked by the normally staid Baseball-Reference.com website). Even the more defensible gold gloves over the past few years have been considered “wrong” by the stat-crowd, to the point where a number of national writers openly mock the awards and go out of their way to “ignore” th em.
This concerns me as a fan, and as someone who is keenly interested in the Hall of Fame merits of players. I absolutely believe that when it comes time to judge players on the whole of their careers, that individual awards such as the Gold Gloves, MVP and Cy Young awards matter. I want these awards to be relevant and properly awarded.
Two things have happened lately that give me hope:
(All winners/leaders listed below are on one common Google XLS here. Listed are the winners of the GGs, Fielding Bibles, and then the leaders in each league by position of these Defensive stats: UZR/150, DRS, FRAA, and Total Zone. I haven’t gone into the various definitions and pros/cons of these stats; I have a planned off-season defensive statistical overview post where I’ll go into greater detail).
First off, if you believe that the Fielding Bible panel has picked the best possible awardees, then you’ll be happy to note that every Fielding Bible award winner also received a Gold Glove this year. Here’s the Fielding Bible winners by position for 2013:
| Pos | Fielding Bible Winner |
| C | Yadier Molina, STL |
| 1B | Paul Goldschmidt, ARI |
| 2B | Dustin Pedroia, BOS |
| SS | Andrelton Simmons, ATL |
| 3B | Manny Machado, BAL |
| LF | Alex Gordon, KC |
| CF | Carlos Gomez, MIL |
| RF | Gerardo Parra, ARI |
| P | R.A. Dickey, TOR |
Now, here’s the Gold Glove winners, with the Fielding Bible award winners bolded:
| Pos | AL GG Winner | NL GG Winner |
| C | Salvador Perez, KC | Yadier Molina, STL |
| 1B | Eric Hosmer, KC | Paul Goldschmidt, ARI |
| 2B | Dustin Pedroia, BOS | Brandon Phillips, CIN |
| SS | J.J. Hardy, BAL | Andrelton Simmons, ATL |
| 3B | Manny Machado, BAL | Nolan Arenado, COL |
| LF | Alex Gordon, KC | Carlos Gonzalez, COL |
| CF | Adam Jones, BAL | Carlos Gomez, MIL |
| RF | Shane Victorino, BOS | Gerardo Parra, ARI |
| P | R.A. Dickey, TOR | Adam Wainwright, STL |
As you’ll see below by looking at the various defensive metrics out there, most of the Gold Glove winners were merited. In fact, there only seems to be one egregiously bad selection here (which we’ll get to below). Nearly every other winner was at the top of one or more of the advanced metrics available by position for his league:
UZR/150 leaders per league (again, with Fielding Bible winners bolded):
| Pos | AL UZR/150 | NL UZR/150 |
| C | ||
| 1B | Mike Napoli, BOS | Anthony Rizzo, CHC |
| 2B | Ben Zobrist, TBR | Darwin Barney, CHC |
| SS | Yunel Escobar, TBR | Andrelton Simmons ATL |
| 3B | Manny Machado, BAL | Juan Uribe, LAD |
| LF | David Murphy, TEX | Starling Marte, PIT |
| CF | Colby Rasmus, TOR | A.J. Pollack, ARI |
| RF | Shane Victorino, BOS | Gerardo Parra, ARI |
| P |
Defensive Runs Saved leaders per league:
| Pos | AL DRS | NL DRS |
| C | Salvador Perez, KC | Wellington Castillo, CHC |
| 1B | Mike Napoli, BOS | Anthony Rizzo, CHC |
| 2B | Dustin Pedroia, BOS | Darwin Barney, CHC |
| SS | Pedro Florimon, MIN | Andrelton Simmons, ATL |
| 3B | Manny Machado, BAL | Nolan Arenado, COL |
| LF | Alex Gordon, KC | Starling Marte, PIT |
| CF | Leonys Martin, TEX | Carlos Gomez, MIL |
| RF | Shane Victorino, BOS | Gerardo Parra, ARI |
| P |
FRAA Leaders per league:
| Pos | AL FRAA | NL FRAA |
| C | ||
| 1B | Eric Hosmer, KC | Paul Goldschmidt, ARI |
| 2B | Ian Kinsler, TEX | Donovan Solano, MIA |
| SS | Nick Franklin, SEA | Andrelton Simmons, ATL |
| 3B | Manny Machado, BAL | Nolan Arenado, COL |
| LF | Andy Dirks, DET | Carl Crawford, LAD |
| CF | Alejandro De Aza, CWS | Brandon Barnes, HOU |
| RF | Shane Victorino, BOS | Hunter Pence, SF |
| P | R.A. Dickey, TOR | Andrew Cashner, SD |
And lastly here’s the Total Zone Total Fielding leaders:
| Pos | AL Total Zone Total Fielding | NL Total Zone Total Fielding |
| C | Matt Wieters, BAL | Yadier Molina, STL |
| 1B | Mike Napoli, BOS | Paul Goldschmidt, ARI |
| 2B | Dustin Pedroia, BOS | Brandon Phillips, CIN |
| SS | Jayson Nix, NYY | Andrelton Simmons, ATL |
| 3B | Manny Machado, BAL | Juan Uribe, LAD |
| LF | Alex Gordon, KC | Chris Heisey, CIN |
| CF | Jacoby Ellsbury, BOS | Denard Span, WAS |
| RF | Shane Victorino, BOS | Norichika Aoki, MIL |
| P | R.A. Dickey, TOR | Patrick Corbin, ARI |
So, after looking at all these leaders, lets talk a bit about the Gold Gloves and ask ourselves whether they did a good job representing the best defenders this year. Position by position:
Catcher: Salvator Perez is as good an AL pick as any; the only other AL catcher in the mix is Matt Weiters. On the NL side, Jadier Molina has earned his reputation and backs it up on the metrics side. His only challenger being the little known Wellington Castillo from Chicago.
1st Base: Hosmer and Goldschmidt seem as good of picks as any; only Mike Napoli and Anthony Rizzo seemed close in either league. Napoli may have been a better pick than Hosmer on the weight of the evidence.
2nd Base: There’s several decent candidates who were not honored, but I don’t think anyone is arguing vehimently against either Pedroia or Phillips as the winners. Darwin Barney may be the most egreiged candidate.
Shortstop: the amazing Andrelton Simmons led every possible statistical category; there was no chance he was losing. J. J. Hardy‘s selection wasn’t bad per se, but as you can see from the above tables four different AL shortstops led each of the four statistical measures. None of them was Hardy though, making you wonder if his gold glove was slightly on reputation.
3rd Base: One day Manny Machado will move back to short (maybe) and challenge Simmons for the title of “Best Shortstop in the Game.” But for now he has to settle for easily being the best defensive 3B in the game. As with Simmons, Machado led every possible defensive measure at his position. On the NL side, the choice of Nolan Arenado was a sound one, with only Juan Uribe really challenging him. Thankfully the award didn’t go to someone like David Wright or our own Ryan Zimmerman based on reputation.
Left Field: Alex Gordon was a sound choice; the NL choice of Carlos Gonzalez may have been a disservice to one Starling Marte. However, picking individual positions for the OF is somewhat tough, especially for the corners. Fangraphs lists RF winner Gerardo Parra as a left-fielder for some reason.
Center Field: Carlos Gomez is a great pick (and is one of the reasons I posted my “Why no MVP support for Gomez” post in this space, which by the way, got almost no reaction from the readership…). Adam Jones was nearly dead last in some of these range metrics and unfortunately has gotten this award via reputation (and his arm; still one of the best) as opposed to performance. Jones is clearly the “Derek Jeter” of 2013, and the voters really erred badly on his selection. Its hard for me to say who I would have preferred; Jacoby Ellsbury is the biggest name among the four guys who led the four different defensive numbers, but Ellsbury’s arm is weak (nearly last of any CF in the league) and a better candidate would have been Leonys Martin.
Right Field: Gerardo Parra and Shane Victorino are the leading candidates for their leagues and both selections are warranted. I know that Hunter Pence led the NL in FRAA, but his arm is awful (one of the worst of any RF in the league), so that has to count against him. In fact, Victorino was as good as or better than Parra in most of these metrics (with the exception of Arm; Parra has one of the better arms in the league). I’m guessing its arm strength that tipped the Fielding Bible balance to Parra.
—
Conclusion: I think the Gold Gloves did a pretty good job in 2013 of identifying the best overall defenders at each position. With one significant exception (Adam Jones). I think its time the sportswriters who have been purposely ignoring the awards come back into the fold.
Lincecum cashes in for 2 more years. Photo via SD Dirk flickr via wikipedia
One of the more intriguing FA situations for the coming off-season was resolved incredibly early, with Tim Lincecum signing 2yr/$35M deal to stay with the San Francisco Giants for two more years. Lincecum also gets a full no-trade thrown in.
$17.5M a year for a guy whose last two seasons looked like this:
– 2012: 10-15, 5.18 ERA, 1.468 Whip and a 68 ERA+. -1.7 bWAR
– 2013: 10-14, 4.37 ERA, 1.315 Whip and a 76 ERA+. -0.6 bWAR
His fastball velocity, once a strength, rank him 62nd out of 81 qualified starters in 2013. He was averaging 93-94 with a peak of 99 earlier in his career; now he’s averaging 90.2 and peaking 94.3. That’s a huge, significant velocity loss that hasn’t been accompanied by any D/L stint or time off. He’s 29, he’s got incredibly weird (lets call them “unique” to be nice) mechanics and he’s coming off of two seasons where he’s pitched like a 4-A pitcher, well below replacement value. I’m sorry, but why would anyone believe at this point that he’s got any shot of returning to his Cy Young glory?
Now, you can argue that his more advanced numbers (Fip, xFIP, Siera) aren’t as damning as the traditional numbers I posted above (this is exactly what Dave Cameron does in one of the reaction links located at the bottom of this post). And you’d be right to a certain extent. By xFIP for 2013 he’s ranked 29th of 81 qualified starters. By FIP he’d be ranked 45th, and by SIERA 35th. None of those are elite placements for the year. It still don’t make Lincecum a $17.5M/year arm. And, that’s putting an awful lot of faith in the xFIP, if that’s your argument. Because we’ve seen plenty of pitchers whose xFIPs always trail their FIPs (and Lincecum pitches in SF, where homers go to die). And we’ve seen pitchers whose FIP is improved because they get more K’s than ground ball outs (and Lincecum is still a high strikeout pitcher, so his FIP will always look better). And one final rebuttal; xFIP is an estimator of future performace, not a guaranteer of it. Look at Lincecum’s career and his xFIP-next year’s ERA link is all over the place. To blindly look at his 2013 xFIP and predict that he’s returning to form is, well, foolish. And none of these arguments apologizes for his negative WAR values the last two years; hey Sabre-nerds; you can’t pick and choose stats to approve this and leave out your favorite one.
I wouldn’t have given him half the guaranteed money the Giants just did. I wouldn’t have even given him a Q.O., because its hard for me to believe someone out there would have given him even $14M guaranteed for 2014.
Here’s another stat line to consider:
– 2013: 10-14, 4.67 ERA, 1.238 WHIP, 81 ERA+, -0.1 bWAR.
Comparing this stat line straight up with Lincecum’s 2013, you’d clearly think this pitcher would be more in line to get paid than Lincecum, right? This stat line belongs to none other than Dan Haren. Who thinks Haren is scoring a 2 year/$35M deal this off-season? Who here thinks Haren even gets a 1 year/$8M deal? Certainly Haren’s not going to get a Qualifying Offer out of the Nats this fall.
Other opinions on the deal: Hardballtalk advised not to “freak out” about the contract, that there’s so much money in the game and blah-blah. Sorry, this isn’t about salary escalation (if you wanted to talk about that, lets talk about the Hunter Pence deal … a clear example to me of salary escalation for a good but not great player). Dan Symborski at ESPN hates the deal with pretty good points about the timing, the lack of a Q.O., the lack of a market for him, etc. Keith Law points out that the contract seems like a “thanks for the memories” contract, not one that will actually help the Giants win. Gwen Knapp on SportsonEarth points out the sentimentality of the deal. Dave Cameron points out that Lincecum’s xFIP makes him actaully more valuable than his traditional numbers appear. Maybe we’re the dumb ones and the Giants are the smart ones. Rob Neyer tries really hard not to be harsh about the contract. And lastly unabashed SF homer Grant Brisbee chimes in.
Giants GM Brian Sabean has long had a bad rap in the blogosphere as being one of the poorest GMs in the game. And then his team went and won the World Series two years out of three. But moves like this bring back questioning of his competence. Unless he throws his owner under the bus and washes his hands of the deal, if that’s indeed the case.
Remember this guy? He’ll be 100% for next spring and may spell a changing of the guard in the division. Photo via AllansGraphics.com
With major moves being made this off-season for the rotations of the NL East teams, we seem set to be in store for some serious pitching duels intradivision in 2012. How do the rotations stack up, right now? If the season started tomorrow, here’s what we’d be looking at for rotations:
| Philadelphia | Atlanta | Miami | Washington | New York | |
| #1 | Halladay | Hudson | Johnson | Strasburg | Santana? |
| #2 | Lee | Jurrjens | Buehrle | Gonzalez | Dickey |
| #3 | Hamels | Hanson | Sanchez | Zimmermann | Pelfrey |
| #4 | Worley | Beachy | Nolasco | Jackson | Niese |
| #5 | Pineiro | Delgado | Zambrano | Wang | Gee |
| In the mix | Blanton, Kendrick, Willis? | Minor, Teheran | Vazquez?Volstad, LeBlanc | Lannan, Detwiler, Gorzelanny | Young? Schwinden? |
By team, some observations:
What do you guys think? In terms of Washington, more than a few pundits have stated that the addition of Gonzalez makes the Nats a wild card contender, right now, and that was before the Jackson move finally brought some plaudits from typically cynical national baseball writers when considering signings by this franchise.
Do you think the Nats have now supplanted the Braves as having the 2nd best rotation in the division (as ESPN’s Buster Olney is opining?) I think they have; I think Atlanta’s starters may be taking a slight step back while our quintet looks to be a solid, young but relatively experienced core.