The Red Sox have announced that they have named former Orioles and former Braves General Manager Frank Wren their new vice president of baseball operations.
Which requires us to regroup a bit, because that’s a lot of GM-types in the Red Sox’ front office.
Dave Dombrowski was hired last month as the Sox’ President of Baseball operations. He will, presumably, have full and final say over any baseball moves the Red Sox make. His hiring caused former GM Ben Cherington to resign, leading to yesterday’s promotion of senior vice president/assistant general manager Mike Hazen to the post of general manager. Now Wren enters the picture, one presumes, in between Dombrowski and Hazen.
UPDATE: Nope, Wren is below Hazen as well. Which sort of moots all the stuff I had in an earlier version of this post about the dynamics between Dombrowski, Hazen and Wren. Wren, it seems, is going to be merely an advisor, not unlike former Royals GM Allard Baird is with the Sox.
Which makes this more a function of title inflation than anything else. Advisors are now “Vice Presidents” despite not really having any executive authority. General Managers now answer to people higher on the chain. If it makes everyone feel better and more important, well, so be it.
