Atlanta Braves Morning Chop: making the sausage

Last week we suggested that timing could hint certain things about the Braves’ GM search.  It’s now Monday and those guesses are starting to look better.

It’s now Monday, October 9 and the Atlanta Braves do not have a General Manager.  Oh, sure – John Hart is the acting GM, but perhaps that fact is actually part of the problem in getting a replacement.

In the meantime, we’ve heard a couple of rumors, but essentially nothing else.  Doesn’t sound like Dayton Moore is packing up to move to Atlanta any time soon.

There’s a old adage about making sausage.  If you like to eat sausage, you don’t want to be around while it’s being made.  That’s pretty much how I could characterize the Atlanta Braves’ front office situation since… well, probably since John Schuerholz kicked himself upstairs to become team President in 2007.

My own opinions are continuing to be reshaped as more information leaks out.  But if you’ve been following some of the conversations going on, then you would have to conclude – as a minimum – that there was a lot of meddling going on from above while Frank Wren was GM.

I’m gonna hazard a guess that this meddling didn’t stop once Coppy took the helm.

So that’s now 10 years of oversight, with little to show for it on the field, and a whole lot of mess in the past 4-5 years internally.

Wren was ultimately fired when he tried to oust Fredi Gonzalez.  That probably wasn’t the only reason, but it was clear that there were other authorities that wanted to see Fredi G. continue in that role.

When Ken Rosenthal wrote of ‘turmoil’ in the front office and ‘palace intrigue’ issues, that more-or-less sounds like the same kinds of things going on during Wren’s years… especially when you sneak a peek at Jeff Wren’s twitter timeline.

The constant in all of that?  John Schuerholz.

So there’s this, from the Boston Globe’s Nick Carfado:

"Dayton Moore, GM, Royals — There’s no chance Moore would go to Atlanta if John Hart remains president of baseball operations. Moore would need complete control to leave Kansas City, according to people close to him. Hart, it appears, would like to stay on and he’s eyeing Nationals assistant GM Doug Harris and special assistant Dan Jennings for the job. Ben Cherington has also been mentioned. This is all a result of GM John Coppolella being forced to resign over international signing violations. The Braves appear to be going for a more traditional candidate rather than a young, analytics type."

Sure – of course Dayton would want this:  (1) he already has complete control in KC, so anything less would be a demotion, and (2) frankly, he’s a sausage-maker too, so having anybody mess with his own recipe for success would immediately make him long for his days at Kauffman.

Why would Hart target guys like Harris or Jennings?  Because they are used to being the #2 guys… Harris while working under Rizzo at Washington; Jennings while being under the thumb of now former meddling Marlins owner Jeffrey Loria.

In other words, he wants to preserve the status quo… which clearly isn’t working.

Both Schuerholz and Hart seem to think that they know how to build teams and want to make sure that whoever is running ‘their club’ does it their way (though it’s not clear that these guys are necessarily in sync with one another as it is, and that’s another problem).

That’s not a recipe for future success… it’s not going to work while either of these men are continuing to meddle.

Getting out of this mess

Here’s where Terry McGuirk, the Braves Chairman needs to step up and assert his authority.  He has to.  He’s the official patriarch of this dysfunctional family.

The conversations should go something like this:

• “John (Schuerholz): you’ve made this franchise what it is today [there’s both a touch of legacy and a touch of criticism in there]… but to move forward from here we need to allow others to stand on their own two feet.  I’m offering you a chance to retire from the Braves.”
• “John (Hart):  thank you so much for helping us through the past 3 years.  Unfortunately, we are in a position where we can’t move on without having a clean slate for the next general manager.  So I’d like to offer you an opportunity to retire from the Braves.”

Would such a move hurt?  Yes – it would.  But as with unpopular player moves, he would have to say ‘this is a business’, and this business isn’t performing well under the current model.

Yes John S – you are a Hall of Famer and your 14th straight years legacy will remain intact.  But that’s now 12 years in the past and it’s time for somebody else to run this organization – in a modern way that reflects how baseball has changed even since the time when you ran the club.

Frank Wren tried to continue the legacy, but was stymied from doing many of the things he felt he wanted to do.  Whether that would have turned out better or worse, there’s no way to know.

John Coppolella evidently wanted to do certain things as well.  He did emphasize rebuilding the farm system and that may ultimately be his own legacy.   But I have to believe now (until proven otherwise) that he was forced out because of an internal clash.  Yes, there’s an investigation going on, but that feels more like a secondary thing at this point.

Next: Speaking of New Prospects

I’m sorry fans, but if this change-at-the-top doesn’t happen… then not much will change at all because it won’t matter who has the GM title.

In fact, that business card might as well say “Puppet”.