Bain: Hardball retrospective: General manager trading scorecard

From SABR member Derek Bain at Seamheads.com on December 4, 2015:

Inspired by the Philadelphia Phillies chapter in the “Bill James Baseball Abstract 1985” entitled “The Philadelphia Trading Record” (pages 202-206), the following study reveals the best and worst of the “wheelers and dealers” in Major League front offices for the past 65 years. I cross-referenced every trade in the Retrosheet Transaction Database with the Seamheads – Baseball Gauge and the Sean Lahman Baseball Archive in order to determine each player’s post-trade statistics. With the resulting player-season list, I computed the Win Shares (WS) and Wins Above Replacement (WAR) for each player traded from the time of the trade until their next transaction (another trade, free agent signing with another organization, outright release, etc.)

In the following example, the statistics accrued by Jim Edmonds following his trade to the St. Louis Cardinals will be counted as negative statistics against Bill Stoneman from March 2000 through December 2007. Conversely the same statistics are tallied in a positive manner for Walt Jocketty over the same timeframe. Likewise, Edmonds’ stats accrued from December 2007 through his May 9, 2008 release by the Padres are totaled in the negative for John Mozeliak and in the positive for Kevin Towers.

Read the full article here: http://seamheads.com/2015/12/04/hardball-retrospective-general-manager-trading-scorecard/



Originally published: December 4, 2015. Last Updated: December 4, 2015.