The Tomahawk Times - The Frank Wren FAQ
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by Davis21wylie
With the quasi-retirement of John Schuerholz several weeks ago, the Braves find themselves heading into the 2007-08 hot stove season with a new GM. In this week's edition of the Tomahawk Times (formerly the "Braves Beat," which apparently was a completely unprofessional title despite what I thought was a catchy ring), we take a look at Frank Wren, the man who will be filling Schuerholz's sizable shoes. But first...
This Week's News & Notes:
- 10/21 - Royce Ring, go-to LOOGY?
- 10/22 - MLB.com beat writer Mark Bowman has a nice mailbag on Mark Teixeira's long-term future in Atlanta, as well as the ongoing speculation that Tom Glavine will once again don a Braves uni in 2008.
- 10/23 - The Braves hired Bruce Manno to be Wren's assistant GM. Manno had previously been Wren's right-hand man during his short tenure as Baltimore's GM (more on that later). They also re-upped director of player development Kurt Kemp, scouting director Roy Clark, and director of Latin American operations Johnny Almaraz, all to two-year contract extensions.
- 10/24 - Jeff Francoeur won't be replacing Andruw in center -- but Brent Lillibridge might.
- 10/25 - Atlanta claimed RHP Chris Resop from Anaheim, meaning Chad Paronto had to be dropped from their 40-man roster.
And now, the Frank Wren FAQ:
What were Wren's jobs before his first GM gig?
After graduating from St. Petersburg Junior College, Wren joined the front office of the Montreal Expos in 1987 as their assistant director of scouting. In September 1991, then-Expos GM Dave Dombrowski accepted the GM position for the Florida Marlins, an NL expansion franchise that wouldn't start playing until 1993, and Wren followed his boss to the Marlins as the club's assistant general manager. He was promoted to the position of Florida's vice president in 1996, and the expensive, veteran-heavy Marlins won a World Series in 1997.
Before the 1998 season, Marlins owner H. Wayne Huizenga told Dombrowski to conduct a fire sale and rid the team of its high-priced championship stars, which caused Florida to suffer through a horrendous 108-loss season in 1998. Despite this setback, though, Dombrowski and Wren's farm system soon had the Marlins back to playing .500 baseball, and in 2003 Florida won another World Series with many players Dombrowski had acquired.
But back to 1998: Following a disappointing 79-83 season (in spite of having the highest payroll in baseball), Pat Gillick stepped down as the GM of the Baltimore Orioles. Because of the work he had done as Dombrowski's right-hand man in Florida, Baltimore hired Wren as their GM going into the 1999 season.
What was Wren's tenure as Orioles GM like?
With a three-year contract in place, it looked like Wren would finally get a chance to mold a franchise in his image. The O's had finished just 79-83 the year before (after winning 88 games in '96 and 98 in '97), but their pythagorean record in '98 was 84-78, so it wouldn't have been all that outrageous to expect them to return to their wild card form of a few years earlier. After a down year, things were looking up again for Baltimore... right?
Of course, we all know what happened to the '99 Orioles. They went nuts during the winter of 98-99, signing Albert Belle to a cringe-worthy contract and blowing more cash on the likes of Will Clark, Delino DeShields, Doug Linton, Jason Johnson, Ricky Bones, Heathcliff Slocumb, Charles Johnson, Mike Timlin, Mike Fetters, Xavier Hernandez, Rich Amaral, and Jeff Conine. Some of these moves worked out in 1999 (Belle was actually pretty good that year), but most of them were irrelevant in the short run and franchise-killing in the long run. Baltimore would finish 1999 at 78-84, good for 4th place in the AL East despite the 3rd-highest payroll in baseball, and have matched that meager win total only once since, in 2004. For his part in the debacle, Wren was fired as GM after just one year at Baltimore's helm, 3-year contract be damned.
How much of the 1999 Baltimore Orioles' failure can be blamed on Wren?
Ah, therein lies the rub. Wren may have pulled the trigger on the aforementioned deals (Belle's being the highest-profile and most damning), but we can't assume that he was acting entirely on his own. Why, you ask? Because he was working for the most meddlesome owner this side of George Steinbrenner -- Peter Angelos. Angelos actually negotiated the Belle deal, and there's no doubt that Angelos also pressured Wren into making a number of those (theoretically) "win-now" moves for veterans, instead of building for the future like the late-nineties Orioles should have done. In other words, it's difficult to separate the deals that were genuinely Wren's from those that were mandated from above.
On the other hand, Angelos probably didn't meddle in Wren's depth acquisitions, and that's what the 1999 O's were really lacking: depth. The starting lineup didn't hit all that badly:
Pos Player Ag G AB R H 2B 3B HR RBI BB SO BA OBP SLG SB CS GDP HBP SH SF IBB OPS+ C Charles Johnson 27 135 426 58 107 19 1 16 54 55 107 .251 .340 .413 0 0 13 4 4 3 2 95 1B Jeff Conine 33 139 444 54 129 31 1 13 75 30 40 .291 .335 .453 0 3 12 3 1 7 0 103 2B *Delino DeShields 30 96 330 46 87 11 2 6 34 37 52 .264 .339 .364 11 8 5 1 5 1 0 83 3B Cal Ripken 38 86 332 51 113 27 0 18 57 13 31 .340 .368 .584 0 1 14 3 3 3 3 143 SS Mike Bordick 33 160 631 93 175 35 7 10 77 54 102 .277 .334 .403 14 4 25 5 8 10 1 91 LF *B.J. Surhoff 34 162 673 104 207 38 1 28 107 43 78 .308 .347 .492 5 1 15 2 1 8 1 115 CF *Brady Anderson 35 150 564 109 159 28 5 24 81 96 105 .282 .404 .477 36 7 6 24 1 7 7 128 RF Albert Belle 32 161 610 108 181 36 1 37 117 101 82 .297 .400 .541 17 3 19 7 0 4 15 142 DH *Harold Baines 40 107 345 57 111 16 1 24 81 43 38 .322 .395 .583 1 2 14 0 0 2 3 150
But the bench was horrendous -- Clark (who was past his prime and frequently injured) was the only regular bench player to post an average OPS+, and most of the other backups were well below average. Given that the pitching staff was slightly better than average, the team could have at least been respectable if Wren had filled out the bench better, which in turn might have saved Wren's job.
So, what can Braves fans expect from Wren as their new GM?
Probably nothing close to the sweeping roster changes he made shortly after being hired by Angelos. After his dismissal in Baltimore, Wren went on to serve as Schuerholz's assistant GM in Atlanta for more than seven years, during which Wren functioned as the team's "principle voice in free-agent negotiations, trades and other duties delegated by Schuerholz" -- so it's not like Wren is new to the Braves organization. Also, remember that Schuerholz is still on Atlanta's payroll as team president, and you have to think that he will still play a sizable role in the direction of the franchise, despite his insistence that "Frank will be the general manager... He will make the decisions about player personnel and all manner of baseball operations." In other words, don't expect the Wren regime to bring any significant changes to the philosophy that has guided this organization to one of the most successful 17-year runs in baseball history. Wren may have botched his first GM gig in Baltimore, but this time around (from an organizational point of view) he is in a much better position to succeed... Don't fall into the trap of thinking that the loss of Schuerholz will mark the end of Atlanta's days as a contender in the NL East.
Next Time: A look at the top prospects in the Braves organization.
