Just a bit before the Detroit Tigers and Boston Red Sox took the field for Sunday Night Baseball, ESPN’s Jim Bowden posted the following message to his Twitter account regarding a brief conversation he had with general manager Dave Dombrowski.
I just ran into #Tigers President Dave Dombrowski in the press dining at Fenway Park he told me they are going to try and win #buyers
— Jim Bowden⚾️🏈 (@JimBowdenGM) July 26, 2015
Dave Dombrowski has a reputation of being less than forthright with the media, especially when it comes to making moves, and especially especially when those moves potentially involve trading away players currently on his team.
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Tony Paul of the Detroit News reminds us of the perfect anecdote regarding the Rick Porcello for Yoenis Cespedes trade of the offseason.
Dave Dombrowski said #Tigers were absolutely not going to trade a starting pitcher; two days later, Porcello was gone. Smoke-screen king.
— Tony Paul | Detroit News (@TonyPaul1984) July 27, 2015
Dombrowski has already admitted that selling is a possibility at the deadline, but the feeling all along was that the Tigers were going to wait until (more or less) the last minute before making the decision to do so.
It’s true that the Tigers are going to try to win it all in 2015, but that’s only going to last until such a time as they decide not to. The implication that they are definitely going to act as buyers is simply not true.
The Tigers themselves probably don’t know what they’re going to do. If they win three or four of their remaining games before the deadline they could very well look to buy, but if they lose three or four of the games then selling looks like their most likely destiny.
The Tigers might end up selling or they might end up buying. Whatever the case, though, we can’t take Dombrowski’s word at face value. We’ve learned that much by now.
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