Wren overruled by JS / McGuirk in previous requests to rebuild team?

dak

dak

Well-known member
Braves writer and insider (?) gondeee posted the article linked below today to weigh in on Coppy. The part that I found most interesting though is this nugget on Wren below. I'm thinking gondeee's source is either Jeff Wren, Jeff Wren, or Jeff Wren. So, hard to know how credible this may be. Enjoy!

Wren was never allowed to rebuild the Braves. He was mandated to try and put a winning team on the field every year, without the benefit of tearing down the big club and restocking. Sources within the Braves organization have told me that Wren wanted to rebuild the team several times after he took over, but was told that he could not. That decision not to rebuild, which came from above Wren, caused several necessary reactions by him and his front office and thus defined his tenure as GM:

  • Wren had to start using the draft to select players closer to the majors.
  • He was unable to trade away star players before they left via free agency, and those free agents didn’t net the draft picks they had netted under John Schuerholtz (because of a change in MLB free agent compensation rules).
  • He was forced to sign free agents to fill gaps in order to keep competing.
  • He had to spend more and more on the major league team, which left less for player development, especially internationally.
  • And most destructively, he had to use what farm system he had to make trades to try and remain competitive.
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http://www.gondeee.com/2015/10/06/braves-promote-john-coppolella-to-general-manager/
 
honestly just sounds like excuses for some of the poor decisions he made in drafting and also in signing players.
why would they not let him rebuild and then immediately rebuild as soon as he leaves?
as my mom judge judy says - if it doesn't make sense, it probably isn't true.
 
I agree with yeezus.

Question is if this is the case, when exactly did Wren want to rebuild during his tenure here? Besides his first couple of years in which we were rebuilding, we had a good young nucleus that needed a shot to see how far they could go and compete and needed complimentary pieces to do so, which is exactly what Wren did during his tenure here, and for the most part was successful until the later part of his tenure.

Only thing that I will counteract that with, is I truely believe that Wren would have handled the Teixera situation differently and at least got a better package than Casey freakin Kotchman if Bobby and the brass didn't intervene and request that we get a MLB position player at that position of need.

I'm not a huge JS fan and think he walks on water like some, but this sounds like more sour grapes from the Wren tree.
 
yeezus said:
honestly just sounds like excuses for some of the poor decisions he made in drafting and also in signing players.
why would they not let him rebuild and then immediately rebuild as soon as he leaves?
as my mom judge judy says - if it doesn't make sense, it probably isn't true.
Click to expand...

Well they got rid of Wren because he made a move on Fredi. It's really not more complex than that.

In reality, I think we saw an issue, Wren wasn't able to really run the organization the way he wanted to. JS seemingly stepped into the presidency role and kept being involved in the daily baseball operations. Still is the case it seems as well.

I don't expect any major changes under new GMs. Wren was used as the scape goat for why this team sucked this year. It wasn't because we traded off everyone before FA, it was because Wren sucked. It wasn't because JS had Wren do certain things, Wren acted alone. ANyone in the know knows that the President has the final say. Some organizations the president is largely there symbolically, obviously that isn't happening with JS, so many moves that have been made, have been made in th esame exact manner as his trades and signings in the mid 2000s.
 
I think we'll have to wait for the definitive Wren biography to answer these questions. It can only be written posthumously though. So..two, maybe three years, after he dies of a heroin overdose.
 
I don't doubt for a second that JS and McGuirk didn't want a rebuild, but I certainly doubt that Wren fought hard not to rebuild. I also think that list of what Wren supposedly had to do is complete BS. Some things he didn't even do on that list.
 
weso1 said:
I don't doubt for a second that JS and McGuirk didn't want a rebuild, but I certainly doubt that Wren fought hard not to rebuild. I also think that list of what Wren supposedly had to do is complete BS. Some things he didn't even do on that list.
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Wren probably recognized he young stud building blocks like Hayward, Freeman, and Simmons coming up, and probably wanted to rebuild as they were in their younger days.

But he's the devil, so never mind
 
thewupk said:
If we were to beleive all the negative stuff said about Wren last offseason I don't see why we shouldn't believe this.
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So you are going to start believing all the negative stuff now? It works both ways.

Let's just look at the article and consider what the author considers the most destructive factor of JS forcing Wren to be competitive. Having to gut the farm to trade for players to continue to be competive. Did that actually happen though?
 
The Men of Wren are just salivating over this article full of nonsense. Wren gutted our farm guys! Where would we be without Charlie Morton and Delgado.
 
dak said:
Braves writer and insider (?) gondeee posted the article linked below today to weigh in on Coppy. The part that I found most interesting though is this nugget on Wren below. I'm thinking gondeee's source is either Jeff Wren, Jeff Wren, or Jeff Wren. So, hard to know how credible this may be. Enjoy!

http://www.gondeee.com/2015/10/06/braves-promote-john-coppolella-to-general-manager/
Click to expand...

Will work on getting something together with the counterpoints to that article - everyone keep quiet about it...weso's my anonymous source.
 
I've supported Wren plenty in the past year, but it's hard for me to see "several" instances where he would have had a reasonable case to rebuild the team. He was hired in October of 2007, and I'm assuming he would not have gotten the promotion at that time if he had been out of synch with JS (and wanted to rebuild). So between the 2008 and 2014 seasons, when was the MLB and MiLB talent in a state where a rebuild discussion should have been on the table? Not trying to be flip . . . just having a hard timing zeroing in on a "several" of those times . . . or even one.
 
weso1 said:
So you are going to start believing all the negative stuff now? It works both ways.

Let's just look at the article and consider what the author considers the most destructive factor of JS forcing Wren to be competitive. Having to gut the farm to trade for players to continue to be competive. Did that actually happen though?
Click to expand...

Actually I believe neither fully but I do feel parts of both are true. How much? We'll likely never know.

As far as the last part. Outside of the first offseason where he was named GM how many trades did he make to pump up the farm or bring in younger players? I'm seriously asking because I can't think of many. I can only think of trades that sent Braves minor leaguers for big league talent. With that being said most of the top tier Braves prospects at that time were kept and brought up to be apart of the team but I don't recall any prospects being brought in to bolster the farm.
 
dak said:
I've supported Wren plenty in the past year, but it's hard for me to see "several" instances where he would have had a reasonable case to rebuild the team. He was hired in October of 2007, and I'm assuming he would not have gotten the promotion at that time if he had been out of synch with JS (and wanted to rebuild). So between the 2008 and 2014 seasons, when was the MLB and MiLB talent in a state where a rebuild discussion should have been on the table? Not trying to be flip . . . just having a hard timing zeroing in on a "several" of those times . . . or even one.
Click to expand...
Yeah...that contention just doesn't stand up to scrutiny.
 
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