1. yes, major kudos to the scouts. Andy and his crew have found their niche and are exploiting it. 2. I understand there are more factors than Waibel, but he is THE GM. This is his job. If we sign a player that turns out to be a bust, he has to shoulder a good majority of the blame.
With point 2, it's probably somewhat dependent on the scouts. If they're giving him poor info, or not the best targets, he's not going to have a lot to work with. That being said, things like giving Yura a big contract after a loan where he didn't light things up is definitely on him. I could see why they may have wanted to keep him, but there's no world where he earned 2 million per year. It does feel like both sides have found their groove and seem to be working well together now.
But who is responsible for the scouts in the organization? Waibel. He hires and terminates them as he needs. He leads the scouting of the organization. So if they fail him... he is to blame for that failure. It is all part of being a leader in an organization.
I can't speak for the dynamic in the current org, but this was a strength of the Kreis/Lagerwey pairing. Garth would track players and keep a vast number of prospects warm, and then when a need developed he'd get Kreis's input on a particular player and then either work towards a deal or pivoting to an alternate prospect.
Dec., 2014. From the first post of this thread: https://www.rsl.com/post/2014/12/16/real-salt-lake-names-craig-waibel-technical-director
TD and GM are quite different. He was named GM at a later point, but I'm not sure when. Dane Murphy just recently took over TD responsibility from CW, which means he'll have more of the direct responsibility of acquiring talent.
I believe Waible spent the first year as TD level in rank with HC and both reporting directly to the President. The reason was Bill Manning didn't want Cassar former assistant out ranking him. After Bill left Craig became GM.
The GM typically reports to the President, so I don't think that's the reason. Manning tended to dabble in soccer related decisions, and DLH felt he should only concentrate on the business side so he wanted to separate the two. A TD duties and GM duties are quite different although in many organizations a GM will also perform the TD role. I think the reason for naming Waibel TD initially was to minimize the responsibility as he learned the job. Now that Waibel also has the Royals to look out for, they've added a TD to support him.