Ranking all 30 MLB teams’ front offices from worst to first
By Eric Cole
24. Marlins
General Manager: Kim Ng
Whoever has owned and/or run the team, the Marlins have been perennially choked for payroll space, but it isn’t like Miami GM Kim Ng’s front office has done much to improve things in her short tenure so far. Generally speaking, the Marlins’ attempts at short-term, cheapish deals have yielded very little on the field especially on the offensive side of the ball and that is a problem for a team that is never going to be able to spend very much.
That said, what keeps the Marlins out of the cellar is that they do appear to be assembling a very formidable young pitching staff and they were smart enough to give an extension to Sandy Alcantara. The Marlins aren’t likely to be legitimately good for a while as they aren’t quite savvy enough in player acquisition to maximize their money and there isn’t enough offensive help coming down the pipeline, but they at least have a chance to make games interesting.
23. Angels
General Manager: Perry Minasian
There is a good chance that this ranking will look like a reach in a couple years, but we are gonna give Minasian the benefit of the doubt given that he was likely hamstrung by the Angels being kinda sorta for sale before changing their minds for some reason. Plus, the Angels’ issues are very long-built as his predecessors failed to have much interest in building a pitching staff (or a team for that matter) beyond “here’s hoping Mike Trout and Shohei Ohtani are enough”.
Minasian was highly regarded around the league before his arrival in LA and it does seem like there is help coming for the pitching staff down in the minors. Ultimately, the front office will be graded (and probably rightly so) on how they look after Ohtani’s free agency saga concludes and if they can continue to improve the big league roster, but there is at least some cause for optimism here.
22. Diamondbacks
General Manager: Mike Hazen
The Diamondbacks have been a mixed bag ever since Hazen took Arizona’s GM job back in 2016. The bad news is that Hazen’s ability to sign free agents that help the club has been virtually non-existent and giving Madison Bumgarner $85 million when the prevailing (and correct) wisdom was that he was close to being washed loses him a bunch of points here.
On the flip side, the Diamondbacks have done well building a strong talent pipeline as Corbin Carroll looks like a future (and maybe current) star and top picks Jordan Lawlar and Druw Jones have loads of upside. Arizona was also smart enough to trade for Zac Gallen back in 2019 and he looks like to be one of the best pitchers in baseball. A lot has to go right for Arizona to be good, but they at least have given themselves some chances to make it happen.
21. Rangers
General Manager: Chris Young
The Rangers are pretty much all in at this point and the first wave of that payroll push ended up costing former GM Jon Daniels his job. However, it does look like the front office correctly understands that you have to build real pitching depth to be successful as they not only signed Jacob deGrom and Nathan Eovaldi, but have built a nice stable of arms in the farm system with Jack Leiter, Kumar Rocker, and Brock Porter.
It is nice to see the team willing to spend on the roster, but giving the injury-prone, but awesome when healthy deGrom as much as they did combined with the failure to address some holes on the offensive side of the ball and the bullpen despite having so much invested in the present keeps them down here for now. They could jump up with some sound decisions in the near future, if things work out, so folks should keep an eye on them.