Rosenthal Argues That Wren Wasn't a Drooling Moron

[MadduxFanII]

he was apparently a micromanaging giant penis and a lot of people were just waiting for the power to go out so they could bury that ****er in his back right down to the hilt.

I think this is a really good point. You can be a jerk and win big and keep your job forever (hi Belichick) or you can be a nice guy and get some additional rope when things go bad, but you can't be a jerk and expect any deference during the bad times. Wren won 96 games, then his team had a down season and that was it- the first chance Schuerholz got, Wren was gone.

There have been enough reports on Wren's personality that it's difficult to ignore them all, so I'm willing to bet that he really was a bit of a jerk. That said, it's worth acknowledging that we didn't hear any of this until after Wren was fired. There weren't daily stories about Wren's temperament for years before last September. As soon as Wren was fired we started getting reports about his abrasiveness and micro-managing personality. Maybe it would have been different if the Braves were located in a market with actual media instead of the AJC and Braves.com.

The other thing that bothers me is that none of these reports on Wren's personality offer specifics, and none of them are credibly sourced. It's basically a series of vague whispers about personality flaws, none of which are attributed to specific people. Either provide us with actual events ("On June 17, 2011, Frank Wren ate the salami sandwich John Coppolella brought from home for lunch and said, 'Neener neener, I'm the GM, I can eat your lunch'") or give us sources who are willing to put their names to what they say.

 

[Millwood1Hitter]

How can you call Fredi Wren's guy when you even say it's up for debate that he was truly Wren's first choice? Fredi has always been Bobby's boy, that we know for sure. But it interesting you believe that Wren liked Fredi so much while at the same time wanting Bobby to go away. It's hard to see that both ways IMO.

I just want to clarify my post, I didn't make it clear what I was trying to state...that's what happens when you're posting at work

Wren wanted a puppet, someone that he could push around and have control over when making decesions regarding the team, the roster, personal decesions, structure of the organization, and even lineup and in game decesions. Bobby didn't and wouldn't put up with that. But I think that the entire organization headed by JS had Fredi picked as the successor (decesion probably was made well in advance of the actual decesion, probably when JS was still at the helm with Wren as his assistant), as well as Bobby and that was the overwhelming decesion of the entire FO on which direction to make when Bobby stepped down and Wren went along with it and made that decesion. Without doubt in my mind, without intervention by the rest of the upper management, Wren would have hired someone else besides Fredi as I don't believe he was Wren's first choice. I believe Wren went along with it to appease his superiors all the while knowing that he still got a guy that could be a pushover compared to Bobby, and in his mind that was fine. And after Wren's blunders over the past few seasons, Fredi became Wren's scapegoat but the rest of the FO wasn't going along with that.

 

[Julio3000]

...

The other thing that bothers me is that none of these reports on Wren's personality offer specifics, and none of them are credibly sourced. It's basically a series of vague whispers about personality flaws, none of which are attributed to specific people. Either provide us with actual events ("On June 17, 2011, Frank Wren ate the salami sandwich John Coppolella brought from home for lunch and said, 'Neener neener, I'm the GM, I can eat your lunch'") or give us sources who are willing to put their names to what they say.

Amen.

 

[Dalyn]

Amen.

That's not going to help us now, but I'll give you a thanks for effort.

 

[zitothebrave]

The Teixera trade didnt just set back the Braves five years, It made the Rangers competetive way sooner too. It was a disaster of a trade and worse than anything Wren ever did.

Wren was still not good though. His history in Baltimore was bad (which was what i argued when he was first put in place) i remember his current detractors saying it was the Orioles owners fault and not his... funny how that changed.

How Wren handled stuff like the Smoltzie thing was in poor class. Hes not an awful GM but hes not a good one either. We are better off without him

No, Angelos was the reason for Wren sucking. That annd that ALbert Belle collapse no one saw coming. It wasn't until ANgelos got into the back seat that Baltimore started getting good again.

 

[smootness]

For a barren farm system, we sure did graduate a lot of players, average age 22, good ones who are contributing or all-stars at the major league level - Freeman, Heyward, Simmons, Gattis, Teheran, Wood, Beachy, Medlen, Jurrjens, Minor, Kimbrel. So any analysis of our farm must include guys who graduated, otherwise it's just not accurate.

An overall analysis of the farm system during his tenure, sure. But it doesn't change what it was when he was let go, though.

We made a good pre-emptive move to make sure we didn't end up with no prospects and limited assets, which is what we were looking at a year from now.

We now have limited assets but a strong farm system, which can become assets pretty quickly.