Dave Dombrowski Out in Detroit
In a move that seemingly came out of nowhere, Tigers owner Mike Ilitch has announced today that the team has released Dave Dombrowski from his contract so he can pursue other opportunities elsewhere. Assistant GM Al Avila was promoted to replace him as General Manager of the team, effective immediately.
Dombrowski wasn’t under contract past this year, so there have been rumors that he could take a job with another organization this winter, but it’s a bit surprising to see the Tigers let him go now. One could potentially connect the dots with Larry Lucchino being removed from the Red Sox CEO role yesterday — perhaps Dombrowski suggested to Ilitch that he’d like to interview for that job, and Ilitch decided to let him go in order to do so — but the released statement makes it sound like this was more Ilitch’s decision than Dombrowski’s.
Clearly, Dombrowski has been quite successful in Detroit, even though the 2015 season didn’t go as the team had hoped, and he’ll be in high demand this winter. The Blue Jays are still looking for a long-term CEO replacement for the retiring Paul Beeston, and he’d potentially be a fit in Anaheim as well, where the front office is still under construction after Jerry Dipoto resigned last month. If the Mariners or Brewers decide to turn over their baseball operations departments, I’d expect both would be highly interested in Dombrowski as well.
There’s a press conference in half an hour, and perhaps there the Tigers will clarify whether this was done now because the team already knew Dombrowski was leaving this winter anyway, or whether he was shown the door because of the team’s failures on the field this year. Either way, I’d expect Dombrowski will become one of the most coveted free agents out there, and will probably have his pick of which organization he wants to run next.
Dave is the Managing Editor of FanGraphs.
Holy crap.
If you want to get rid of Dombrowski in order to bring in a new philosophy, that’s one thing. The FO has never had a “modern” approach to organizational construction and has made a lot of questionable moves that were covered by the great trades made by Dombrowski.
But to get rid of Dombrowski, and immediately promote his #2 to essentially the same role, makes it seem like you think Dombrowski was the/a problem, and the organizational foundation is fine. Which is ridiculous.
Hopefully this was more mutual than at first blush, and that we’re giving Dombrowski the headstart he wanted on other positions he desires.
There’s no link here, but I would normally expect that promoting the #2 is an interim appointment, not a permanent one, and that a permanent GM would be hired in the offseason.
Sounds as if Avila was offered the job outright on Saturday and agreed to a long term contract (5 years I believe) so it isn’t an interim gig.
Not sure I understand that at all, Dombrowski made the moves he had to make and got run out of town for it. I suppose Dombrowski could have said he wanted to leave and ownership decided to just let him pursue other opportunities immediately.
A lot has been written about how he has been a successful GM, so I won’t rehash…
But WTF?
“I would like to thank Dave Dombrowski for his 14 years of service,” Ilitch said in a released statement. “Together, we’ve enjoyed some success, but we’re still in aggressive pursuit of our ultimate goal: to bring a World Series title to Detroit and Michigan. I’ve decided to release Dave from his contract in order to afford him the time to pursue other career opportunities. I feel this is the right time for the Tigers to move forward under new leadership.” – Ilitch
So maybe he wasn’t coming back and they just decided to cut ties now?
Bizarre thing to allow him to stay through the deadline (thus being the guy in charge of picking which prospects to rebuild around), only to get rid of him a few days later.
It’s not because of the Red Sox CEO opening. The Lucchino news coincided with announcements that Sam Kennedy was his replacement (even if it isn’t official yet).
This might have been something that was decided a while ago, so he had to run through Al before the deadline on the deals, but it would’ve probably sent their plans in a tailspin if all of a sudden GMs had to deal with a new guy for 48 hours. Might’ve just kept him in there for continuity.
Sam Kennedy is replacing Lucchino’s role as President, not CEO. That position has yet to be filled.
Disagree, unless you think they were going to make a major permanent hire, or that his #2 has wildly different ideas. Much of the work this trade deadline is based off of Dombrowski’s say, but going through an upheaval before-hand would likely not have turned out better, just different.
To me it makes more sense if the writing was on teh wall in June, to let him stay through the deadline and then let him go. Especially if this is more about Dombrowski moving on than a large change or issue with his style and theory behind roster construction and organizational philosophy.
Fingers crossed for Toronto. Keep the positive acquisition train rolling.
I’m really upset about this as a Tigers fan. Dombrowski has done a great job over the last decade at building this team up. We’re in a much more precarious spot without him.
Does anybody know whether or not he and Andy McPhail ever had ties?
I really find the “released” verbiage to suggest it was mutual, or at most 60/40 one way or the other.
In the statement, Avila said: “We’re confident we can make a strong push to win this year, and that we have the foundation in place to win next year and for years to come.”
Is that just typical rah-rah stuff, or does Ilitch & Co. really believe they’re playing for this year?
Ilitch signed off on the trades at the deadline, so I think it’s mostly typical team cheer stuff.
I’m surprised at the timing but not shocked that Ilitch has probably forced Dombrowski out. Dombrowski had it all last year but at mid-season instead of pursuing relief pitching he made a big splash with Price. Bad move. The bullpen was shaky the rest of the year and imploded in the post-season. This had to concern Ilitch. The Tigers got good young pitching last week. Was that Dombrowski? I’d be surprised if he was making trades and then removed this year. Cherington is next.
But trading away a bunch of prospects for bullpen help seldom if ever ends well.
The Price trade worked out pretty good when you consider what Smyly and Jackson have done since. (Not much.) Price provided real value for the team, helped them make the playoffs, and now he got some pretty good prospects for it.
The bullpen thing IS a concern, but it’s not like he hasn’t tried to address it with what at the time seemed like solid movies for Nathan and then Soria. Everyone expected a little decline from Nathan, but not the absolute implosion he had.
And in many instances the bullpen was mismanaged by the old conservative rule you had to have proven and defined roles on the team, which led to bullpen guys who “won the spot” from management but didn’t belong in high-pressure situations.
Dombrowski deserves some shade for that, but he did a pretty darn good job putting the team together.
I am a big Dombrowski fan. So I was as shocked as everyone else that he got “released” by Detroit.
But some of it does make sense, if we just turn off our BS meter. Maybe Illich already knew he was not bringing Dombrowski back, but genuinely wanted to enable him to pursue other opportunities now, while they are open, whereas by the time the season ends, decision making would have been advanced by then and less opportunities would be available for Dombrowski.
And as the commenter astutely noted above, perhaps they kept him on to help manage the trade deadline period, for the continuity. I would also add that probably Avila does not have the Rolodex and relationships that Dombrowski had to get those deals done.
As much as I admire Dombrowski, I don’t know that all fans of teams with openings want him in charge. His history is of coming in, tearing down what was there before, sucking for a while to get a few great draft picks, then build up a new contender from those picks and the assets picked up from the tear down. That is the move of revenue poor teams, the A’s under Connie Mack and Finley did that a lot. Richer teams have done it since, Cox did it for the Braves. Dombrowski did it for poor teams, Expos and Marlins. Tigers had money, so this was his first rebuild with money.
He’s never jumped into a team that was trying to take the next step up. Not that he can’t do it, but maybe he disagrees with what you see on their team, and he decides that he wants to go into tear down mode first. Maybe that is why Illich decided to get rid of him, perhaps Dombrowski was ready to tear down again, but Illich didn’t (since he is so old and want to see a winner).
Will be interesting who he ends up with and what he does for that team.
I don’t know if he necessarily tore teams down – he followed Duquette’s low-revenue footsteps with Montreal, joined the Marlins as an expansion franchise, and joined the Tigers when they had already been sucking. His timing reminds a lot of Bill Parcells in the NFL, who also specialized in turning around teams that had hit rock bottom.
I do think there was a disagreement in philosophy with Illich, like you speculated.
Do you ever know what the hell you’re talking about?
Idiots like you are a drain on the knowledgable followers of this website.
Is it really necessary to be such pompous dick to this gut and then vote down his every comment en masse, like some mean girls clique in high school, Mr. Entire Fangraphs Community?
You could just ignore his comments if you don’t find them intresting.
Haha. I suck at spelling. Go ahead and downvote me, Fangraphs Community mean girls.
Don’t waste your time speculating…
He’s going to LA… Dave “Double Butt-Chin” Dombrowski is headed over with all the new Angels they have in the outfield.
So you’re saying we should leave the speculating to you, then?
No Speculation… Just facts