Intrepid correspondent Brent Steinacker takes on the thorny task of ranking general managers. Help him out!
With two new GMs entering the field (Ruben Amaro, Jr., in Philadelphia and Jack Zduriencik in Seattle), it's a good time to look at how they all stack up.
The columns in this table are: World Series Rings Won, Expected Wins (Rank), Payroll (Rank), Expected Wins / Payroll (Rank) and Sum of Ranks (Final Ranking).
AL (avg. # wins needed to win Wild Card (last 5 yrs): 95.4)
AL East (avg. # wins needed to win division (last 5 yrs): 94.6)
Team GM Rings X-wins
Rank Payroll
Rank X-wins/Payroll Final Baltimore Andy
MacPhail 23 13 9 =
45 (15) Boston Theo
Epstein 2
rings 2 24 26 =
52 (17) NYY Brian
Cashman 3
rings T10 30 30 =
70 (28) Tampa Andrew
Friedman 5 2 2 =
9 (1) Toronto JP
Ricciardi T3 18 15 =
36 (7)
AL Central (avg. # wins needed to win division (last 5 yrs): 90.4)
CWS Ken
Williams 1
ring T6 23 24 =
53 (20) Cleve. Mark
Shapiro 14 12 12 =
38 (12) Detroit D.
Dombrowski 2
rings 18 28 29 =
75 (29) KC Dayton
Moore T24 6 7 =
37 (10) Minn. Bill
Smith T6 4 4 =
14 (2)
AL West (avg. # wins needed to win division (last 5 yrs): 88)
LAA Tony
Reagins 9 21 23 =
53 (20) Oakland Billy
Beane T20 3 3 =
26 (4) Seattle Jack
Zduriencik 29 29 28 =
86 (30) Texas Jon
Daniels T20 7 9 =
36 (9)
NL (avg. # wins needed to win Wild Card (last 5 yrs): 90)
NL East (avg. # wins needed to win division (last 5 yrs): 88.2)
Atlanta Frank
Wren 17 26 22 =
65 (27) Florida Larry
Beinfest 16 1 1 =
18 (3) NYM Omar
Minaya T6 27 27 =
60 (23) Phil. Ruben
Amaro, Jr. T3 17 16 =
36 (8) Wash. Jim
Bowden 30 11 8 =
49 (16)
NL Central (avg. # wins needed to win division (last 5 yrs):88.2)
ChC Jim
Hendry 1 22 21 =
44 (14) Cin. Walt
Jocketty 1
ring T24 14 14 =
52 (18) Houston Ed
Wade 19 15 19 =
53 (22) Mil. Doug
Melvin T10 9 13 =
32 (6) Pitt. Neal
Huntington T27 5 5 =
37 (11) St.Louis John
Mozeliak 13 19 20 =
52 (19)
NL West (avg. # wins needed to win division (last 5 yrs): 86.2)
Arizona Josh
Byrnes 15 8 6 =
29 (5) Col. Dan
O’Dowd 22 10 11 =
43 (13) LAD Ned
Colletti T10 25 25 =
60 (24) SD Kevin
Towers T27 20 17 =
64 (26) SF Brian
Sabean 26 16 18 =
60 (25)
As you can see, Cash and Theo have more rings between them than the rest of the current GMs combined. Having top payrolls definitely helped. Jocketty’s Cardinals were one of the most unimpressive winners ever. Most people believe Ken Williams’ was mostly due to luck. Dombrowski’s first win was “bought” while the second was pretty legit. I was obviously too dismissive of these GMs, but I don’t think that too many people were impressed in a lot of these instances.
I used expected wins instead of wins because we are looking at the GMs, and they don’t play the games. The next column is their cost-per-win ranking. Next, they are ranked based on dollars per expected win. Adding the totals produces the final GM ranking.
After reading this, you must be thinking, how can Cashman come out as such a bad GM? Well, last season was bad for a team with a payroll like that. This is just a snapshot of last year. Also, a large payroll will pull down a GM's ranking.
How much difference is there between the divisions? Any AL East GM tied in score with another in a different division should be considered as better. The AL Central should be ranked next, while the rest will be considered similar.
The real questions at hand are:
Who are the worst GMs, the ones at risk of being fired? (Bavasi for Seattle ranked last and is already gone (Welcome, GMZ!).) Another bad season from Cashman (28), Dombrowski (29) or Wren (27) could mean a firing. Even Colletti (24) or Sabean (25) could be gone (as most people seem to hope). Bowden, being last in expected wins, is also a likely candidate.
Who are adequate? Most GMs' faults are hidden by small payrolls which really do make it hard to judge them. The quality of GMs has also been going up over the years.
Who are the top GMs? If I took the top 5 from this list, would it be outrageous? A combination of Beane, Byrnes, Beinfest, Friedman and Bill Smith (one year after Terry Ryan, who was also highly regarded) would seem pretty solid.
I haven’t heard of any SABR guy with the definitive method for properly evaluating GMs. The real debate, then, is about drafting, adding the right players at the right time, et cetera. This ranking is just to get the discussion started.
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