Examining Head-Counts of MLB Front Offices
The Angels are in the bottom 5, ranking with a clump of awful teams.
I did some digging related to head-counts of MLB front offices.
Here are the results and a brief summarization of what I found.
Criteria
Before getting into the results, let’s discuss the criteria and methodology that I used.
What I am aiming to look at is the number of front office employee’s part of each team’s baseball operations department.
This includes President of Baseball Operations, GM, Senior Advisors, Special Assistants, Directors, Coordinators, Analysts, etc. across varying departments.
These departments include amateur scouting, international scouting, pro scouting, player development, baseball analytics, baseball administration, baseball development, baseball strategy, player personnel, player valuation, research & development, biomechanics, predictive modeling, strategic initiatives, and clubhouse/support staff.
This does not include player development instructors, scouts, medical/performance staffs, or major league coaching staffs.
Methodology
To compile the results, I began by going to each MLB team’s front office page on their team website.
28 of the 30 teams had all of their front office employees from the baseball operations department listed on this page.
The Yankees did not, so I turned to the team’s Media Guide to fill in the gaps.
The Angels also did not, and I again turned to the the team’s Media Guide.
The Angels had one— ONE— baseball operations member listed on their directory, GM Perry Minasian.
Results
Here are the total headcounts, by team:
Observations
The top six teams combined for a .545 W% in 2024.
CHC (117)
TB (112)
CLE (89)
PHI (85)
BOS (81)
LAD (79)
The bottom six teams combined for a .397 W% in 2024.
CHW (49)
PIT (46)
LAA (45)
STL (43)
MIA (32)
COL (30)
Angels
Focusing on just the Angels, they come in with the 4th lowest amount of baseball operations employees in their front office.
Consider the teams behind them:
St. Louis: The Cardinals publicly admitted that they’ve fallen behind and have committed to an “8-to-12 percent increase” investment towards their staff and infrastructure.
Miami: The Marlins let go of over 70 staffers earlier this month, with a club official telling The Athletic, “the team will fill all the vacant positions and create new roles as well.”
Colorado: no need for an explanation here. If you’re close in proximity to the Rockies, you’re in trouble.
It remains puzzling why:
a) Arte Moreno continues to avoid significant investment into front office staffing/infrastructure.
b) No Angels GM has been able to convince Moreno on the importance of spending on front office staffing/infrastructure.
Take last offseason, for example.
Rather than pay a combined $5.3M to Jose Cisnero ($1.75M), Adam Cimber ($1.65M), Zach Plesac ($1M), and Adam Kolarek ($900k), the team could’ve put that into the front office.
Instead, they got a 7.27 ERA over a combined 52 innings pitched.
Until this changes, the Angels are going to continue to struggle to compete.