Ranking the American League West's front offices by competence

If you want to find something to get Los Angeles Angels fans really mad, just mention the name Arte Moreno. The Angels owner has done a whole bunch of things to frustrate a fan base that is starved for some winning seasons.

One move Moreno has gotten much better feedback than others was hiring Perry Minasian to head up the Angels front office. Minasian replaced Billy Eppler who Angels fans are thrilled to see elsewhere. Minasian has done a lot of good, but as we saw at the deadline, a lot of bad as well.

How does this Angels front office rank compared to the rest of the AL West?

5) Oakland Athletics

This is rather obvious, but anytime your team is 42-96, your team is likely going to be at the bottom of any front office ranking. This isn't to say Oakland GM David Forst is to blame for all of their struggles as Oakland's ownership situation is just as bad if not worse than the Angels, but he hasn't done himself many favors.

The A's were in the postseason just three years ago and were ten games over .500 in 2021, but won just 60 games last season and will win even fewer this season. They had to tear everything down partly due to ownership, but the trades they made have mostly been horrible.

The A's and Braves have made two key trades with each other in the last two offseasons, sending Matt Olson and Sean Murphy to Atlanta in the process. Trading away those homegrown stars, while unfortunate, isn't even why the trades are so bad. The returns were just so weak, and you knew it at the time.

Shea Langeliers was the main piece of the Olson trade, and he has a .653 OPS as the A's primary catcher. Cristian Pache was another huge part of it, and he was DFA'd. The Murphy trade looks a bit better with Esteury Ruiz showing value, but even then, the A's didn't get the second best player in the trade as the Brewers somehow stole William Contreras.

The A's have made a slew of trades in the last couple of years, giving away multiple all-stars in the process, and they have a grand total of two top-100 prospects right now. Neither of those prospects were acquired in the trades. The A's are historically bad now, and don't appear to be heading toward being any better anytime soon.

4) Los Angeles Angels

I like a lot of what Perry Minasian has done. His draft picks have started to show a ton of value. Zach Neto has been a key piece for the Angels, Nolan Schanuel looks like an on-base machine, even Chase Silseth has shown signs that he can be part of the future rotation.

Some of his moves from this past offseason panned out like Matt Moore, Carlos Estevez, Gio Urshela before he got hurt, and the Angels did field their best team in a very long time on paper. Injuries have played a role in the collapse, and that's not on Perry, but the trade deadline has overshadowed the good.

The Lucas Giolito trade was awful. The C.J. Cron and Randal Grichuk trade was also awful. The Angels gave up too much to get Dominic Leone. The players have to play better, but Minasian targeted players that had overperformed their advanced metrics, and it's not incredibly surprising to have seen them struggle.

While Minasian hit on some of his offseason moves, other ones like the Hunter Renfroe trade and the Tyler Anderson signing have aged poorly. The Angels also failed to sign another starter and trusted Jose Suarez whose ERA approached 10.00 before landing on the IL.

Minasian has the misfortune of working under Arte Moreno who expects the team to win in his way. Moreno invests next to nothing in player development, often meddles, and often refuses to go over the luxury tax. Minasian has been given more autonomy than other GM's of the past, and this season failed miserably.

Minasian has had two of the best players in baseball in his control and the team hasn't finished .500 once with him in charge. Of course, Trout and Ohtani haven't played much together, and Anthony Rendon has done nothing, but Minasian doesn't deserve praise for the Angels finishing under .500 every year.

There's a lot of good, and a lot of bad. I'd love to see how he does under a different owner, but that's just a pipe dream at this point.

3) Texas Rangers

The Texas Rangers have managed to go from a team that had missed the playoffs each season since 2016, and had gone under .500 each year as well, to a team that has a legitimate shot at its first World Series title. Chris Young and the Rangers front office deserve credit for that.

Texas has really cooled off of late, but they've spent much of the year in first place and if they get healthy with guys like Josh Jung and Nathan Eovaldi returning from long IL stints, they're a force to be reckoned with. The reason Texas isn't higher on the list, is because much of what they've done is through free agency.

Corey Seager, Marcus Semien, Nathan Eovaldi, and Jacob deGrom are four of the Rangers best players and they were all free agent signings. These are all former all-stars that the Rangers deserve credit for bringing in, but their ownership group deserves a ton of praise for shelling out hundreds of millions of dollars to bring these guys in.

The Rangers have made some key trades bringing in guys like Scherzer, Aroldis Chapman, and Jordan Montgomery in to help them win a World Series. Young has done a great job putting them in position.

1) Houston Astros

To the surprise of nobody, the Houston Astros have the best front office in baseball. The defending champions have won twice since 2017, and don't appear to be going anywhere anytime soon.

Houston had the pleasure of mostly running back a roster that won the World Series. The big move of the offseason was bringing in Jose Abreu to play first base. That's been a disastrous signing as Abreu has really struggled, but Houston hasn't skipped a beat and has a chance to win another division title.

The Astros lost Justin Verlander in free agency, but wound up trading for him at the deadline. They had to give up their top prospects to do it, but the Mets are paying most of the salary. The Astros have one of the best pitchers in the game on cheap money for the next couple of years.

Houston has lost other key contributors like Carlos Correa and George Springer in the last couple of years, but they have Jeremy Pena and Chas McCormick right there to replace them. Pena was instrumental to their postseason success last season as a rookie, and McCormick has broken out this season.

There really isn't much else to add about the Astros, as their run as the best team in the AL for the last six seasons is all you really need when arguing about how good the Houston front office is.