On Sunday, we brought you news that Red Sox GM Mike Hazen had accepted the same position with the Diamondbacks. Hazen's new team has myriad questions to answer -- such as who'll they hire as manager, and whether they'll tear down and rebuild. Hazen's old team has a big one, too -- who will succeed him as GM?
We might already have the answer, because Frank Wren is the "leading candidate" for the position, per Bob Nightengale of USA Today:
Frank Wren now becomes leading candidate to be promoted and become #Redsox GM
— Bob Nightengale (@BNightengale) October 16, 2016
Wren is best known for his seven seasons spent running the Braves, though he also spent 1999 in charge of the Orioles. He was dismissed by Atlanta back in September 2014, and joined Boston's front office roughly a year later (in Hazen's old role, fittingly), once Dave Dombrowski was installed as the organization's point guard.
Dombrowski's presence makes it tough to discern whether appointing Wren as GM will make any difference -- Hazen's departure was ostensibly precipitated by a desire for greater authority. If Dombrowski is calling the plays -- and he almost certainly is -- then the role of GM is less significant than it would be in most other organizations. Still, Red Sox fans has sufficient reason to be torn.
While Wren enjoyed some success with the Braves -- it wasn't long ago their future appeared honeycombed with near-dynasty potential -- there are a number of legitimate brickbats to toss his way as well. Like, say, the Dan Uggla extension and Melvin Upton Jr. free-agent signing. The Braves also were poor at drafting and developing talent late in Wren's stay, and it's probably not a coincidence that many of Atlanta's best scouts during their glory years returned only after Wren's firing.
We'll find out soon enough if Wren is indeed Boston's pick.
