Atlanta Braves front office remains unsettled

A week after being named Atlanta Braves vice president of amateur and international scouting, Andrew Tinnish changed his mind and returned to Toronto.

According to a story on MLB.com, Tinnish left for “personal reasons.”   The Atlanta Braves front office took a beating during and after the investigation into significant irregularities by the previous GM.

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Alex Anthopoulus arrived and began to get his arms around things, hiring Tinnish away from Toronto where he’d worked as Anthopoulos’ director of amateur scouting and later AGM.

Tinnish didn’t finish . . .or actually start

Anthopoulos hiring of his former AGM was something of a coup. Tinnish is considered one of the brightest young (he’s 41) executives in Canada. According to Gregor Chisholm, Tinnish not Anthopoulos masterminded the drafting key pieces like Aaron Sanchez, Noah Syndergaard, Marcus Stroman, Anthony Alford. Daniel Norris and Vladimir Guerrero Jr.

Leaving before he even unpacks does seem to cast another shadow on an already reeling team’s leadership.

Homesick?

Some speculate that the penalties imposed on the Braves meant he had no real job for at least four years. That’s not a well thought out rationale. He understood the penalties when he took the job.

Even if the Braves can’t sign expensive international free agent, scouting needs to continue in order to be ready when restrictions are lifted.

Others suggest that as he settled into the team he recognized that deeper issues remained than he wanted to try to correct.  An executive of his standing and reputation would have asked and received enough information prior to accepting to insure no surprises awaited. It’s far more likely that his statement contains no spin at all.

"“After deep consideration. . . I feel the best decision for me and my family is to remain in Toronto . . .”"

Moving children from Toronto to Atlanta would certainly be a culture shock. A front office baseball executive depends Anyone with a family on his family as a stabilizing influence. If the kids are unhappy, his wife wouldn’t be ecstatic either, that would make coming home from a long day less than relaxing.

Now who?

I’ve given my thoughts on this before. I wrote a month ago that they should bring in men with a new vision and fresh ideas. At the time I was looking for someone to be GM and listed J.J. Picolo, Mike Elias and Jason McLeod as my first calls. The same three names make sense now as well.

I doubt Picolo is going to leave the Royals now and Elias is coming off an Astros’ World Series win; that leaves McLeod.  I preferred him then and he makes more sense now.

In that post I quoted his boss Jed Hoyer explaining how highly he valued McLeod. I’ll let him say it again.

"There’s probably not a better scouting and player development guy out there. . .he has all the skills to do  . . .the (GM) job. He’s got a great way about . . . manages people very easily . . They love working for him.  . ."

Frankly it’s time to stop hiring people because we worked with them before.

I know you so I’ll hire you

When Tinnish left for Atlanta, Andrew Stoeten writing for Blue Jays Nation went high order on him and Anthopoulos.

"Cronyism! Outright cronyism! How dare the Atlanta Braves look so shallowly for their new scouting director. . . Yes, ol’ crony loving Alex Anthopoulos has cronyed a former crony of his out of the Jays’ front office, and into what might become a cadre of Canadian Cronies down in Atlanta.. . ."

It appears Andrew needs a thesaurus and a Xanax. Hiring people who worked with you in your prior job isn’t new to baseball or exclusive to the Braves. We know that breaking into that elite clique is hard to do and once in you’re assured of a long career. That is, unless you violate an encyclopedia of rules or are just awful at your job. He does however have a point.

That’s A Wrap

The only sure way of bringing in new ideas is to bring in new people. If those people worked for you years ago and had success after they left, they will have new insights.

If you simply pack up your office and move the same people – or your favorite subset of the same people, the probability of outside the box thinking is low. Henry ford said it quite succinctly.

"“If you always do what you’ve always done, you’ll always get what you’ve always got.”"

Now, today, the Braves have a chance to inject new leaders with new eyes and a record of success.  Too often a new boss comes in and t=starts to do things the way they were done at hi slat job because they worked. The problem with that is the new job isn’t his old job even if it looks and feels like it is.

I don’t believe for one second that AA sees hiring executive from Toronto as cronyism or patronage. It’s quite possible Tinnish is the best person available for  the job. However, he doesn’t want it.

Next: No contract for you!

Sometimes the best trades are the ones that don’t happen. That could be true in this instance as well.  AA has an opportunity for a redo without snubbing his old friends.

I suggest he call Hoyer and asked about McLeod or Jeff Luhnow and ask about Elias. Moving from Texas or Chicago won’t be nearly as traumatic as being forced to drink Starbucks instead of Tim Horton’s