Ranking Baseball's General Managers From Best to Worst

Here's a question for the offseason: who do you think are the best GMs in the game? (Excluding newbies with one season or less like John Mozeliak, Jack Zduriencik, Neal Huntington, Bill Smith, Tony Reagins, Ed Wade, Walt Jocketty, Andy MacPhail, Ruben Amaro, and Frank Wren.) I place a fairly high premium on having won a World Series; the series-winners are all in the first two tiers. Other than that, protracted success, and an ability to make good moves while not making bad moves.

First tier:
Theo Epstein (Boston Red Sox)
Andrew Friedman (Tampa Bay Rays)
Billy Beane (Oakland Athletics)

I think everyone will probably have Theo Epstein and Andrew Friedman near the top of their lists, right along with (and maybe even higher than the ringless) Billy Beane. Epstein and Friedman have won 3 of the last 5 AL pennants between them, and maintain two of the most stacked major league teams, along with two of the most stacked minor league teams. That's a pretty good recipe for long-term success.

Second tier:
Mark Shapiro (Cleveland Indians)
Kenny Williams (Chicago White Sox)
Larry Beinfest (Florida Marlins)
Brian Cashman (New York Yankees)
Dave Dombrowski (Detroit Tigers)

Dave Dombrowski and Mark Shapiro have lost a bit of the luster since their playoff runs a few years ago. They're still pretty good, but they couldn't push their teams over the top, and the AL Central looks ready to move on without them. But they get a lot of credit for their playoff runs and stacked farm systems from a few years ago. Shapiro, in particular, gets props for his cagey deals, trading away Casey Blake and C.C. Sabathia for Matt LaPorta and Carlos Santana (the minor league guy, not the guitarist), both of whom look like studs.

Kenny Williams makes some head-scratching moves (Carlos Lee for Scott Podsednik? Nick Swisher for practically nobody?), but he makes a lot of good ones too (hi, Gavin Floyd), and he probably has to be up there, especially considering the ring. Larry Beinfest is like a bargain-basement Andrew Friedman; the minor league roster is stacked every single year, but the major league club looks so bad most years that it's hard to remember he won it all in 2003.

It's easy to argue that the money makes Cashman look smart, but he was badly hamstrung by Steinbrenner, and in the last couple years that he's had greater control, he's drafted well, signed the guys he wanted, and made the deals he wanted. Rich teams don't necessarily succeed. Cashman spends his money pretty well.

Third tier:
Jon Daniels (Texas Rangers)
Omar Minaya (New York Mets)
Doug Melvin (Milwaukee Brewers)
Dan O'Dowd (Colorado Rockies)
Dayton Moore (Kansas City Royals)
Josh Byrnes (Arizona Diamondbacks)

Dayton Moore started out looking good, but he's stalled. So have the others, though the Rockies, Brewers, and Mets all are in much better shape. Still, they didn't have nearly as far to climb. These guys won't kill you, and they all look like they might be able to build an 85-win team, but they're strongly dependent on resources, and they don't seem to have a fifth gear when their team inevitably falls just short. Jon Daniels could easily be second-tier; his farm system is amazing, thanks in large part to the Mark Teixeira trade, but his major league team hasn't won, and they still can't pitch. He has made a few horrible deals (including one with Kevin Towers, below), but a few awesome ones. We'll see how they do at turning their prospects into a lineup.

Dan O'Dowd has always had some interesting ideas for how to turn the Rockies into a playoff team, despite the most unusual playing conditions in baseball, and he managed to take them to the World Series a year ago. That same team collapsed in 2008. He's creative, but no matter what he does, the team hits a wall. Byrnes has not been as good as the other young GMs, and seems solidly mediocre: an okay ML club, an okay farm system. Good enough for the NL West, but not at all a standout.

Fourth tier:
Jim Hendry (Chicago Cubs)
J.P. Ricciardi (Toronto Blue Jays)
Kevin Towers (San Diego Padres)

These guys do a few things right, but too many things wrong. This is probably unfair to Ricciardi and Hendry, but with the money they have, they really shouldn't have lost so many games. They spend too conservatively and too aggressively, don't pay enough attention to drafting, and don't have much to show for it. They're like Omar Minaya with even less in the way of results. Ricciardi has a huge mountain to climb in the AL East with the Red Sox and Yankees looming, and now the Rays, but the Yankees stumbled last year and the Jays weren't anywhere near able to capitalize. The Rays showed it's possible to beat the Yankees and Sox. The Jays showed it's possible to build an 80-win team in that division. There's a big difference.

Towers is over the hill and should probably move on; he did some good things a few years ago, but his handling of the Peavy situation this offseason was terrible, the farm system is thin, and the major league team is no great shakes, though they really need to move the fences in or risk exposing all their hitters to clinical depression. He stays out of the fifth tier because of the amazing Eaton/Otsuka for Gonzalez/Young trade, and because I like Paul DePodesta and his blog. He doesn't have a lot going for him right now.

Fifth tier:
Ned Coletti (Los Angeles Dodgers)
Brian Sabean (San Francisco Giants)
Jim Bowden (Washington Nationals)

The dregs. Coletti is a worse version of Hendry -- the spend-and-suck variety -- and Sabean has been a shadow of his former self for years now, completely inept at putting together a major league team. Both of them lead teams with money that have resolutely underperformed where they should be, given their financial resources and fan bases. I may not be giving Coletti enough credit for getting Manny Ramirez, but before Manny came along, his outfield was a mess, with two good players, Andre Ethier and Matt Kemp, and two of the worst contracts in baseball, Juan Pierre and Andruw Jones. The upshot: they ate $20 million of Andruw's contract to make him go away, and they'll still have to hand Pierre hundreds of useless at-bats next year.

The image of the Giants is on a slight upswing thanks to the respective 2008 breakouts of Tim Lincecum and Madison Bumgarner, and the extraordinarily weak division combined with the acquisition of Randy Johnson makes them look like they may have a pitching staff, if nothing else. While the farm is looking pretty good thanks to a nice top 4, the major league lineup is still outrageously thin.

Bowden is a classic case of a tinkerer: he can make some great deals, but seems to be content to do just that. He has absolutely no idea how to tie them into a larger strategy. Witness the Aaron Crow debacle. To quote Keith Law: "They botched their first-round pick, fielded an absolutely awful team, and found their GM and a top assistant embroiled in the scouting/embezzlement scandal, and their GM survived." The Nationals are a terrible franchise, and it's their own fault.

Originally posted at Chop-n-Change.

Comments

[coolmaiden]

Are you kidding me? Kenny Williams in the second tier because of a World Series the White Sox won 4 years ago? Of the Opening Day starters, only 3 were under 30, and even they were 27 or older. They had numerous chances to take over first place in September, but thanks to their hideous bullpen, they accomplished that mainly because of Minnesota's failure to win.
I don't know if your listing of Williams is your way of ingratiating yourself to our new President, but he CERTAINLY does not belong in your elite tier.
The 2008 White Sox payroll (as of Opening Day) was higher than the Cubs, Angels and Dodgers.
Signed,
Not a White Sox (or Ken Williams) fan
P.S. Ken Griffey, Jr. at the trade deadline? KEN GRIFFEY, JR? Really?

[steamboat]

But don't forget Carlos Quinton for a minor leauger. Signed Alexi Ramirez long-term for only a little over a million-a-year. John Danks for Brandon Wells. Gavin Floyd for a damaged-goods Freddie Garcia. Signed AJ Pierzynski for only $2 mil. a year back in '05. Jermaine Dye for $4 mil. that same year. Bobby Jenks off the waiver-wires. Matt Thornton for virtual nothing. Hey, have you looked at the probable '09 club. Getz 2B (very young), Ramirez SS (young and super-talented), Fields 3B (young), Quinton LF (young and a beast), Pierzynski (still a young guy), Floyd, Buerhle, Danks, Thornton, Jenks, Richard, Poreda, etc. are all under 30. And the White Sox are awaiting two future stars (Dayan Viciedo and Gordon Beckham) that are just about ready.....­..........­..I realize you are either a frustrated Twins or Cubs fan. But just to let you know, I AM A WHITE SOX FAN.

[RobinSeattle]

My problem with Cashman, aside from the fact that he fired their great Asia area international scouting guy John Cox, is that he has not been able to give them a productive farm system. The only regular they have now out of that system is Robinson Cano. Yeah, there are Phil Hughes and Joba Chamberlain, but the latter still has to prove that he can stay off the DL and Hughes still has to prove he has MLB level command.

Now you can make the excuse that the Yankees were always drafting at the bottom because of their success, but that doesn't wash. The hallmark of an organization that knows what it is doing is finding those draftees north of the 20th round who you can refine through good player development into fine of even hall of fame level players (John Smoltz, Mike Piazza, to name two examples). The Yankees haven't done that.

Moreover, Cashman is the guy who signed Carl Pavano (the greatest waste of money since Mike Hampton) and paid way too much money for Kei Igawa, who was already having command problems with his fastball at Hanshin before Cashman took a run at him.

So that has left the Yankees with paying a lot on the free agent market. Yes, they have built value in their team by the winning that has ensued, but that equity would be worth more with a greater number of cheap high performing youngsters. And Cashman has not given them that.

[Alex Remington - Huffpost Blogger]

Wang is also a farm system product, and has been very productive -- he was the team's ace in 2006 and 2007. Joba was insanely good in his ML debut. Cano was an All-Star before tumbling in 2008. Melky was looking like a future solid regular before his offensive stagnation. Shelley Duncan's a useful bench piece. Edwar Ramirez, Jose Veras, and Dan Giese all had surprisingly effective years in the pen.

The real problem is that the Yankees adopted a strategy of trading their prospects for expensive veterans, so guys like Dioner Navarro are stars elsewhere. Because they have money, Cashman has been able to acquire players like Bobby Abreu and Nick Swisher for something like a song. I don't think you can penalize him for being good at running a team with lots of money. I utterly reject the Steinbrenner premise that a team must win the WS every year or deem itself a failure; the past two years have been like Cashman's rebirth, and guys like Joba, Cano, Cabrera, Wang, and Hughes have demonstrated that the Yankees can fill spots on the lineup with farm products, not just expensive free agents, to take their place alongside former farmhands and future possible HOFers like Derek Jeter, Jorge Posada, and Mariano Rivera.

[RobinSeattle]

Veras was originally signed by Tampa Bay and then released to go to Texas, from where he was released as well before the Yankees picked him up.

Wang was a free agent signing and there was a lot of demand for him from other teams before he chose the Yankees, including Seattle. This was shooting fish in a barrell, not a big risk.

Ramirez was an Angels signing before he was picked up by the Yankees.

Duncan has a career OBP of .299. That means if you're lucky, he develops into Tony Bautista and that is only if he gets some playing time.

Glese was a 34th rounder taken by Boston and then bounced around before he pachinkoed to the Yankees. The jury is definitely still out on him.

None of those players were drafted or originally signed by the Yankees except Duncan.

And you're kidding on Cabrera, right? A .751 OPS from an outfielder in his BEST year? Then .718 and .642. Please. Total non-factor.

I cited Cano as the lone bright spot for the Yankees farm system and I stand by that. The question for him is if he can now bounce back. I love his talent, but how 2008 affected him mentally will be interesting to see.

Veras might develop, too, or he might go south. With relievers, you just never know.

[charlietuna11]

brian cashman paid sabathia forty one million more than the next highest bidder. he paid forty million each for pitchers igawa and pavano.the two pitchers combined won a total of seven games. he signed jared wright, kevin brown, randy johnson, weaver, and paid clemons last year 28 million pro rated at a cost of about 15 million dollars for his 4 or 5 wins. on top of that a rod opted out of his contract that paid him 25 million dollars per year. after several weeks went by and no one offered to negotiate with a rod, cashman brings him back tears up old contract and gives him a new ten year contract paying him 28 million 500 thousand per year. my only goal in life is to get into a serious poker game with cashman and remington. it would be like taking money from morons. if your a yankee fan your aware that i only scrapped the surface regarding cashmans many blunders.. he is lucky the boss isn't well . if he was ,brian would be long gone.

[Alex Remington - Huffpost Blogger]

George Steinbrenner is no longer involved in the day to day operation of the Yankees; the Brown, Wright, Johnson, Weaver, and Clemens deals all date to the Boss at his most interventionist. (Don't forget Carl Pavano, either.) Cashman handed out a lot of bad contracts. But Alex Rodriguez hardly counts as one of them. A-Rod's opt-out dated to his Texas Rangers contract, and Cashman was widely credited for having won that confrontation, paying A-Rod little more than he was already owed, despite the fact that he was essentially a free agent.

Look, Cashman has a much, much bigger margin for error than anyone else. But you should underestimate him at your peril. His acquisition of Nick Swisher this offseason was shrewd in particular. The Teixeira signing was a smart deal; he only had one team to outbid, and he outbid them. That's the way the game works. The Yankee payroll stays essentially unchanged despite all the heavy spending, because of the amount of money coming off the books.

The Los Angeles Dodgers of the past 15 years are an excellent example of a team that spends a lot of money poorly. So are the New York Mets. The Boston Red Sox are an example of a team that spends a lot of money well. The Yankees aren't far behind. Given his context, Cashman builds good teams, and that's the only standard by which you can measure a GM. He doesn't suck.