Detroit Tigers: Grading the Dave Dombrowski Era
By Mike Rizzo
The Detroit Tigers shocked the baseball world on Tuesday when Mike Illitch released Dave Dombrowski of his contract early and named Al Avila as the new General Manager. Dombrowski’s contract wasn’t suppose to expire until after this season, making the timing surprising. Now that the Dombrowski era is over it’s time to grade his tenure.
First the positives. Dombrowski helped make baseball relevant in Detroit again. I remember going to Comerica Park and Tiger Stadium and the ballpark would be less than half full. The Tigers now get between two-and-a-half and three million fans at Comerica Park every season.
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Also, he acquired future Hall of Famer Miguel Cabrera for Andrew Miller, Cameron Maybin, and a several other prospects. A trade that was, in this writers opinion, was a top five trade in MLB history
Cameron Maybin and Andrew Miller were supposed to be can’t-miss prospects but Miller has only recently become a very good closer and Maybin is on pace to have his best season of his career with Atlanta, eight years after the Tigers dealt him.
Dombrowski’s trades, despite a few clunkers (Doug Fister is a recent and notable exception), were overwhelmingly successful. His trade of Gary Sheffield for Humberto Sanchez and other prospects turned out to be a good one as Sanchez only briefly pitched in the majors.
He also traded for Max Scherzer and Austin Jackson as part of a three team deal after the 2009 season.
He got Doug Fister from Seattle and Anibal Sanchez from the Marlins and in both trades gave up very little. As you can tell by these trades, few of these prospects dealt away have come back to haunt the Tigers.
Now the negatives. Dombrowski’s drafting has been very suspect at best. Starting with his draft in 2002 until 2014 only three of his first round picks remain with the Tigers organization today (Justin Verlander, Nick Castellanos, and Derek Hill). Rick Porcello was traded for Yoenis Cespedes, who is now with the Mets. Jacob Turner was moved for Anibal Sanchez and now he is currently injured with the Cubs.
Ryan Perry just this year came back to the Tigers organization on a minor league deal, but he hasn’t done anything of consequence since he was drafted in 2008.
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Another negative is the Justin Verlander contract extention which probably prevented the Tigers from re-signing Max Scherzer or David Price. Dombrowski signed Justin Verlander two years before he had too, buying high on the game’s best pitcher with no margin for error.
The Tigers have been trigger happy at re-signing players before they have to, whether it’s Dontrelle Willis, Brandon Inge, or as I said, Justin Verlander. I don’t include the Prince Fielder deal because I believe Mr. Illitch was the reason why the Tigers ultimately signed him.
Finally, one more negative is Dombrowski was never able to fix the bullpen. In his defense he did try, whether it was signing Joe Nathan, Jose Valverde, Joaquin Benoit or trading for Joakim Soria. This offseason the only reliever who was re-signed was Joba Chamberlain, who had imploded in the second half of last season. If the Tigers had a decent bullpen my bet is that they would have won at least one World Series (and might be in contention still this year).
My grade for his tenure in Detroit is a B, and here’s why I can’t give him an A. The goal from Mike Illitch and the Tigers organization was a World Series Championship or bust. The Tigers never won the big one in his tenure. In fact, in the two World Series they played in they, they won a total of one game.
With that said, Dave Dombrowski guided the Tigers to the best decade in their history but just couldn’t deliver a World Series Championship. It’s going to be very intriguing to see what direction the Tigers take this offseason.
Next: Dombrowski's Ousting Was Ilitch's Decision, Not Mutual