In a conference call with reporters, Red Sox president of baseball operations Dave Dombrowski said today that his preference is to hire a general manager that is already within the organization as opposed to conducting a search of external candidates (via Jason Mastrodonato of the Boston Herald). The Red Sox, of course, are in the market for a new GM after Mike Hazen was hired as the executive vice president/general manager of the Diamondbacks over the weekend.
Whether the Red Sox remain internal or ultimately interview outside candidates to fill the void left by Hazen’s departure, the fact remains that Dombrowski will have final say when it comes to baseball operations decision-making. Boston ownership afforded him that autonomy when hiring Dombrowski as the team’s president of baseball operations last August, and while the title of general manager undoubtedly comes with plenty of allure for both internal candidates and external candidates with lower-ranking titles, there should be no confusion about the hierarchy within the Boston front office.
Indeed, as Brian MacPherson of the Providence Journal writes, Hazen’s departure is a reminder that the Red Sox are now Dombrowski’s operation. That reality makes it less critical that the Sox find someone from within than it was a year ago when Dombrowski didn’t know the organization as well, but Dombrowski called an internal hire an “ideal” setting. The Sox will conduct formal interviews with internal candidates, but as MacPherson notes, Dombrowski said the benefit of sticking internal is that those candidates have, in some ways, been interviewing for this position since the day Dombrowski was hired.
Dombrowski’s longtime friend and longtime colleague Frank Wren, who currently holds the title of senior vice president of baseball operations, has been reported to be a “leading candidate” for Hazen’s vacated post. Other internal candidates include senior vice president of personnel Allard Baird, senior vice president/assistant general manager Brian O’Halloran, pro scouting director Gus Quattlebaum, vice president of international/amateur scouting Amiel Sawdaye and vice president of international scouting Eddie Romero, as the Boston Globe’s Alex Speier wrote yesterday.
It also remains possible that Hazen will bring one or more of his Boston colleagues to the D-backs front office to work alongside him in a greater role, although Hazen, according to Dombrowski, will be limited in the number of people he is able to enlist. Additionally, anyone who leaves the Sox to join the D-backs will have to be the recipient of a “direct promotion,” Mastrodonato writes, so there won’t be any lateral movement between the two organizations. Certainly it seems plausible, if not likely, that Hazen will pluck a lieutenant or two to join the ranks in Arizona, but Dombrowski suggested that the Boston front office will not lose a large number of resources as a result of Hazen’s hire.
One person the organization could potentially stand to lose isn’t in the front office at all, though. Bench coach Torey Lovullo has already been frequently speculated upon as a managerial candidate in Arizona, and Dombrowski said he’ll be surprised if the D-backs don’t interview Lovullo (via Mastrodonato). He went on to add that while the Sox think highly of Lovullo, Hazen does as well. “We won’t stand in his way,” Dombrowski said of Lovullo, referencing the possibility of the D-backs offering him their managerial vacancy.
There’s no set timeline for the Red Sox to determine a new general manager, though Dombrowski did state that he’d like to find a replacement as quickly as possible. The team does host its organizational meeting to prep for the offseason next week, so it stands to reason that Dombrowski would want to have a new executive in place sooner rather than later. Certainly conducting an outside search and determining a new hire with ownership in that time would be a lofty goal. That, paired with Dombrowski’s stated preference, seems to strongly indicate that Hazen’s successor is already within the organization.
Basically sounds Dombrowski is looking for someone he already knows will agree with him.
So he can hire his Buddy Wren, the most unpleasant GM to work for in baseball.
Have you ever worked for him? I didn’t think so. Just because someone writes about a person in a negative sense, doesn’t mean they’re the “most unpleasant GM”.
I Read MULTIPLE articles from his time with Braves and how many people LEFT when he was there and how he treated people. Hiring his unqualified brother as a ML scout and so forth. I guess everyone is lying, right?
There’s a lot of people who get bad “pub” for one reason or another. But if he is that bad of a person to work for, he wouldn’t be working the position he is, or even be considered in Boston for that matter.
Do you have sources?
Also, maybe one or two people had a vendetta against him and told bs stories to a couple of writers. People will print anything these days.
Not Everyone!!!! Just the people that wrote the articles!!!
just pretty much garentees frank wren is going to become the gm
Bobby Cox spent a lot of time away, as did Aaron, until Wren was gone. Then they came back and are around more often.
The role of GM is rapidly regressing toward an advisory role. The chain of command is shifting and, even in baseball, bureaucracy rules.
Much like Atkins in Toronto, the Red Sox GM position is just a place to build a resume. DD makes every decision that matters.
It doesn’t really matter. DD is the one calling the shots in Boston.
The biggest loss will be Lovullo. Farrell’s in game management skills will do him in eventually.
Not sure can agree with that. Read a story yesterday on WeEI believe it was where Alex Cora was one of the people who *might* have a chance to take the bench coach position should Lovullo leave and was a possibility had he left in 2013.
Cora was considered future manager material during his playing days, manages in PR during the winter and is very knowledgeable of the game. I always liked the guy and he’s the one also would like to see take his place should Lovullo leave.
I’m with robf13 that the biggest loss will be Lovullo. The way he worked the roster when Farrell had surgery was simply fantastic!
However, great to hear the Alex Cora could save the day should Farrell continues to be a mediocre manager.
There’s a lot of Braves fans on this article and the previous one like it ready to be the paulbearer for the Red Sox if Wren becomes the GM. I admit I was ready to post a short, quick message heralding the decimation of the Red Sox. Though I don’t agree that the GM position will be meaningless, I imagine Dombrowski will be more than a preventative measure to Wren wrecking the farm and signing complete train wrecks of contracts.
Dombrowski had a very successful tenure in Detroit. His firing from them means little to me as it seems most GM’s get fired if they hold their post long enough. Probably a lot of fans remember Dombrowski trading young talent in an attempt to extend Detroit’s dominance but that was only the last year of a very successful time in the Tigers recent history. It might be that Dombrowski leading the ship allows Wren to concentrate on what he is good at, whatever that might be.
I get that most fans don’t follow closely the GM of other teams, but this couldn’t be further from the truth. Dombrowksi did a lot of long-term, slow-bleed damage to the Tigers organization, and if you go back to his start of that tenure, it already mirrors what’s happening in Boston.
The only glaring difference is that the financial resources are greater, and he inherited a winner instead of a 100+ loss roster of bad contracts.
Implementing Frank Wren as your GM, regardless of who is or isn’t calling the shots (it’s largely fable that Dombrowski relies on no one, by the way), is a bad indicator of the mindset of whoever is in charge.
Having seen how Wren decimated the Atlanta Braves and changed a once perennial contender in the worst team in baseball, DD should reconsider placing Wren in the position to do this in Boston regardless of how tight a rein DD has on baseball operations. Friendship and business do not go together anymore than gasoline and fire.
Whether DD is a savior is yet to be determined. The one constant in he 2012,2014 and 2015 disasters was upper management, primarily Luccino and his meddling and back stabbing that ultimately sent Theo to the Cubs. Ownership is to be blamed for the big unrealistic contracts. No 20+ million a year contract can be offered unless the owner OK’s it. The next 12 months will show if Boston is advancing or spinning its wheels.