Brewers: Finding David Stearns’ Actual Batting Average As GM

David Stearns Overall

We’ve looked at waivers, we’ve looked at free agency, and we’ve looked at trades. Stearns has been wildly successful as a GM in terms of how his teams have performed.

Stearns’ .772 batting average with trades is very good. Although it’s hard to know just how good that batting average really is unless it’s compared to other GMs and how well they do in trades. But that’s way beyond the scope of this article. It’s fair to assume that winning on 77% of your trades is up near the top.

Free agency was another strong one, although it looked stronger before his 2020 crop. With waivers, there’s only so much that can be done, but Stearns does have some big successes.

There have been 93 transactions that we’ve reviewed from the last five years. 54 of them have been marked as ‘hits’. Eight waiver claims, 14 free agents, and 32 trades make up the hits category. 30 moves have been ‘misses’, eight of them trades, 10 of them free agents, and 12 of them waiver claims.

Nine moves have been marked as draws with four of them being trades, three free agents, and two waiver claims.

Combined together, this gives David Stearns a .629 overall batting average as the Brewers top baseball executive.

Brewers fans knew Stearns had a high batting average, and now we know how high it actually is. When Stearns makes a move, it’s been positive nearly 63% of the time.

Things such as waiver claims have dropped this overall number down, unfairly so, some may argue. If we take out the waiver claims and just look at major league free agent signings and trades, then that takes us down to 71 transactions.

Of those 71 transactions: 46 are hits, 18 are misses, and seven are draws. Putting those numbers together would give Stearns a .697 batting average on trades and free agents. Just about seven out of 10 moves in those avenues have been positive for the Brewers and Stearns.

As Mark Attanasio and many others have said, David Stearns has a very high batting average. Now we know just how high that batting average is in waivers, in free agency, in trades, and in all of them combined.

The Brewers hired David Stearns to build the Brewers up into a perennial contender, and if he keeps up these numbers, that’s the way things will stay in Milwaukee.