The Braves announced today that they’ve given General Manager Frank Wren a contract extension. He’s now locked up through the 2013 season.
This is not surprising. Wren has the full confidence of ownership and team President John Schuerholz. Some fans may agitate about various things such as, I dunno, the fact that the Braves haven’t had a full complement of capable outfielders for several years now and the fact that our big moves at the deadline last season was adding Rick Ankiel and Kyle Farnsworth, but Wren has likewise avoided handing out crippling deals and has made some decisive moves when the opportunity arose. The Dan Uggla trade is a good example. And really, his best work has probably been done on the minor league level where the Braves consistently rank near the top of the list in terms of talent in the pipeline.
It’s easy to be critical of the GM when you watch a team play 150+ games a year, but in the big picture, Wren has avoided big missteps and has generally done a good job. I don’t mean to damn him with faint praise when I say this, but the fact is that a team could do way worse than to have a do-no-harm, occasionally-do-some-good and always do the little things well GM like Wren.
