Evaluating Hendry With WAR

Some fans are calling for Jim Hendry to go, pointing at the Cubs lack of a World Series win under his tenure and his inability to keep a good team on the field for more than two seasons or so. Other fans (who have largely gone silent lately) are saying he should stay around, arguing that he is the most successful GM the Cubs have had in at least 60 years and that he has pulled off some absolutely masterful trades, such as the Aramis Ramirez deal.

Standing in the middle is the new Cubs owner Tom Ricketts. On the one hand, he continues to publicly state at every opportunity that he has full confidence in Jim Hendry, while on the other hand he has not extended Hendry’s contract and is rumored to be shopping around for a replacement. Maybe the Cubs owner hasn’t made up his mind, either.

But perhaps there is a way we can start to evaluate Hendry’s performance as a GM that should be independent of bad luck, improbable injury outbreaks, and other factors that are beyond his control. In theory, we can use WAR.

WAR stands for Wins Above Replacement. It is a computed statistic that attempts to measure player performance across years and leagues independent of mitigating factors. It is not a perfect formula and it does sometimes produce some funny looking results, but it will give a more objective measure of how Hendry has done.

Explaining the Math

If you are not interested in how I am doing the calculations, or you just hate math, skip this part. You probably won’t miss anything.

I am only going to be looking at trades Hendry has made. He took over the Cubs part way through the 2002 season, but for the sake of this analysis I am not going to consider any trades made during that season. There is no way for me to know whether a trade made during the 2002 season should be credited mainly to Hendry or mainly to Andy MacPhail, so to be safe I am ignoring anything happened prior to the Damian Miller trade in November of 2002.

In order to come up with a WAR score for the trade, I am taking the WAR accumulated by the players the Cubs acquired while they were playing for the Cubs and subtracting the WAR put up by the players the Cubs gave away while those players were playing with the team that acquired them.

For example, let’s say the Cubs acquired Andy Anderson from the Cardinals for Billy Bob. Andy stays with the Cubs two season and puts up WARs of 2.1 and 1.6, for a total Cub WAR of 3.7. Billy stays with the Cardinals just one year and posts a WAR of 0.4, but then goes to the Giants in the following season and posts a WAR of 4.9. In this case, the WAR score for the trade would be 3.7 – 0.4 = 3.3. I’m ignoring the 4.9 since it did not take place on the team to which Billy was traded.

Now, let’s say the Cubs then trade Andy to the White Sox for Carl Cubby. In one year with the Sox, Andy posts a WAR of -0.9 (yes, negative WARs do happen quite a bit). In one season with the Cubs, Carl posts a WAR of 0.1. In this case, the net WAR formula would be 0.1 -(-.09) = 1.0. The Cubs get credit for getting rid of a player who would have hurt their win total, and the trade’s WAR value equals 1 as a result.

There is one more oddity to this set up. If a player traded out of the minor leagues and that player never reaches the majors, he is credited with a WAR of 0.0 in the trade calculations. That means a guy who never makes it out Low-A is counted as potentially more valuable in the trade than a guy who plays six season in the majors, but winds up with a WAR of -0.1. I’m not too happy about that, but for now I’ll go with it.

The Data

For WAR numbers and transactions, I am using Baseball Reference exclusively. There may be errors in my math, and that could change some results.

By my calculations, since November 2002 Hendry’s Trade WAR score is a total of 35.9. That means, more or less, that over the past 8.5 seasons Hendry has added roughly 36 total wins to the Cubs via trade. I don’t know how that compares to any other GM because I have not yet done the math. But still, that’s in the ballpark of 4 wins a year. That’s not too bad for a guy reviled by many Cub fans as the worst GM in the history of baseball.

However, that does not tell the whole story.

On November 11, 2006 the Cubs flipped Jon Leicester for Clint Brannon. Following that trade (which has a WAR score of 0), Hendry’s total WAR score sat at 58.9. Over half of that number was due to his two best trades as a GM. On July 23, 2003 Jim Hendry turned Bobby Hill, Jose Hernandez, and Matt Bruback into Aramis Ramirez and Kenny Lofton (net WAR so far of 25.4). About four months later, he fliped Hee-Seop Choi and Mike Nannini for Derrek Lee (net WAR of 18.3). No one argue that those deals were anything less than sheer genius.

However, by the start of the 2009 season, Hendry had made his four worst trades which combined for a WAR score of -28.6. There were plenty of other moves in that window as well, some of them positive, but those four drug his net WAR score down like a lead balloon. I am guessing that no one reading this will be able to name those four trades without looking them up. In fact, I’d be very surprised if any of you even remember the two worst ones.

Hendry’s four worst trades as measured by WAR, so far, are:
January 5, 2008. Angel Pagan is dealt to the Mets. Net WAR (to date) is -9.1.
December 4, 2007. Omar Infante and Will Ohman are trade for Jose Ascanio. Net WAR is -5.2.
December 7, 2005. Juan Pierre is acquired for Ricky Nolasco and two other pitchers. Net WAR (to date) is -4.9.
January 9, 2006. Corey Patterson is dealt away. Net WAR is -4.4.

Did anyone guess that the Angel Pagan and Omar Infante trades were Hendry’s two worst? Did anyone even remember that Omar Infante was ever a Cub? In fact, of those four trades, the only one that is usually mentioned as a bad one is the Juan Pierre deal. I was surprised that is only this third worst (so far). A large reason for that is the strong 3.3 WAR Pierre put up while with the Cubs.

Analysis

So what do we learn from this?

First of all, Hendry’s good trades are really good, and his bad trades aren’t that bad when taken individually. His worst trade by WAR (to date) consists of a fourth outfielder going to the Mets. A lot of GMs would be thrilled to have that as their worst deal.

That said, the jury is still out on some of his other trades. The Juan Pierre deal will continue to get worse so long as Ricky Nolasco pitches for Florida. The Rich Harden deal is right now a 6.0 for the Cubs, but that could change. The Matt Garza deal is a 0.2 for the Cubs, and that one will definitely change (but whether it goes more positive or dips into the negatives is tough to say).

Speaking of the Garza trade, what about Hendry’s alleged tendency to constantly trade away the entire farm system? He keeps giving away all the Cubs’ best talent, right?

Actually, not so much. I was surprised to see that most of the minor league players the Cubs gave up in any trade never reached the majors, or had a negative WAR when they did. On the whole, the minor league players he has acquired have done much, much better than the ones he has dealt away.

For example, in the Nomar Garciaparra trade the Cubs sent Justin Jones to the Twins. At the time of the trade, Jones was ranked as the #56 Prospect in all of the minors by Baseball America. This was undoubtedly a case of the Cubs dealing a top prospect, similar to if the Cubs dealt Matthew Szczur today.

Justin Jones never made it past Double A.

In that same deal the Cubs gave up Brendan Harris. Harris played in 485 games over the course of his career, most of them after he left the Cubs. He also totaled a career WAR of -2.0, and never managed a WAR over greater than 1.0 in any one year.

Other highly regarded young players the Cubs gave up include:
Josh Donaldson (career WAR of -0.2),
Eric Patterson (career WAR 0.2),
Sean Gallagher (career WAR -1.7). Gallagher was rated as high as #82 among all prospects by Baseball America.
Hee-Seop Choi (career WAR 1.6). Choi was ranked as high as #23 among all prospects by Baseball America.

In fact, with the exception of the Juan Pierre trade, Jim Hendry has dealt very little in the way of young players or prospects who went on to have successful careers. That does not mean the players in the Garza trade will not pan out, but it drive home the point that they are called ‘prospects’ for a reason. Chris Archer could be the next Justin Jones and Hak-Ju Lee could be the the next Eric Patterson. Or they could both be in Hall of Fame one day. There are no sure bets when it comes to prospects for any team, and the Cubs track record when dealing prospects is actually pretty good.

Meanwhile, the Cubs have acquired Marcos Mateo, Scott Maine, Justin Berg and Brian Schlitter in past trades. Schlitter is on the DL right now, but all four have already made at least brief appearance in the majors and all four are likely to be competing for a bullpen job in 2012. Mateo and Maine could finish this year in Chicago if a few relievers are dealt.

It is a bit early be evaluating the prospects who came back in the Garza and Gorzelanny trades, but both Zach Rosscup and Graham Hicks are off to a good start. Evan Crawford, acquired for Mike Fontenot, is looking like a good pickup so far as well. It is perfectly possible that, at the end of the day, none of these guys will pan out. But even if that’s the case, Hendry will still have a record of not emptying the farm system. Instead, on average, he as acquired at least as much talent as he has given up. Unless all the players in the Garza trade do very well for Tampa, I think his net record on minor leaguers dealt or acquired will show a balance in favor of the Cubs. That is mainly a credit to the Cubs’ scouting department, led by Tim Wilkens since 2005. However, Jim Hendry is the guy who hired Wilkens, so some of the credit has to go to the GM.