Former Red Sox GM Dave Dombrowski ends Phillies postseason drought
Barely 3 years after he was once unceremoniously fired throughout a Boston Red Sox – New York Yankees Sunday Night Baseball sport at Fenway Park and not more than two years upon getting employed through the Philadelphia Phillies, Dave Dombrowski has constructed any other postseason workforce.
On Monday night time, the Phillies clinched their first-ever Wild Card berth, finishing what have been the longest postseason look drought within the National League.
How did they do it? They exceeded the posh tax threshold for the primary time in franchise historical past, fired their supervisor not up to two months into the season, went massive on the business closing date, and withstood some devastating accidents.
It makes you surprise why the Sox reduce Dombrowski free.
When the Sox employed Dombrowski in August 2015, he inherited a last-place workforce with a prime payroll and a perfect farm machine that integrated Rafael Devers and Andrew Benintendi. The following 12 months, the Sox received the department, after which repeated, after which three-peated. By 2018, they’d received a franchise-record 108 regular-season video games and the World Series. To accomplish that, Dombrowski had to fire a supervisor (no longer midseason), exceed the posh tax, make some massive trades, and soldier on within the face of accidents.
The comparability is an oversimplification, to be certain, however the similarities are there in spades. In each and every case, Dombrowski inherited an underperforming workforce with a large number of skill and grew to become them right into a contender. He paid superstars, traded peak potentialities to get confirmed big-league skill, and despatched the payroll skyrocketing into the stratosphere. It’s now paid off for each groups.
Should the Red Sox have fired Dave Dombrowski?
Let’s believe what may have took place if the Sox hadn’t fired Dombrowski. 2019 was once Rafael Devers’ breakout season; he almost definitely would’ve gotten an extension that offseason. Dombrowski wouldn’t have hesitated to give Xander Bogaerts a carry this 12 months, both. Mookie Betts may nonetheless be right here. Maybe the Sox wouldn’t have completed two of the 3 seasons since Dombrowski’s departure on the backside of the department.
Last fall, Dombrowski instructed the Boston Globe that he didn’t assume his recognition on his manner out of Boston was once “accurate at all.” In reaction, I wrote that he’s the human embodiment of the chant, ‘You can’t make an omelet with out breaking a couple of eggs,’ the fellow who will get effects, however no longer the person who cleans up the mess when the birthday party is over. I now not imagine that to be an excellent overview of his control taste or ability.
Dombrowski may’ve rebuilt the Sox. After all, he made his bones setting up groups from the bottom up and making over perennial duds. At 31, he was once increase the Montreal Expos’ farm machine because the youngest GM within the league. When he was the Florida Marlins’ first GM in 1991, he constructed John Henry (sure, that John Henry) a championship workforce within the group’s 5th season. In Detroit, he oversaw the transformation of the Tigers from a 119-loss workforce to a pennant winner in best 3 years. With the skill he drafted, traded for, and paid, the Tigers virtually stored the Red Sox out of the 2013 World Series. It’s an enormous reason why Boston employed him within the first position.
When Dombrowski left Boston, the group was once messy. But in hindsight, the mess was once most commonly surface-level. He’d traded away top-level potentialities, however lots of the draft selections and global signings of his tenure at the moment are the peak potentialities within the Sox group. The manner he cycles via cash and potentialities is no doubt extra turbulent than how the Tampa Bay Rays do issues, however there’s no trophy or prize for having probably the most well-stocked farm machine.
Dombrowski didn’t inherit a powerful farm machine when he joined the Phillies within the wintry weather of 2020. Baseball America ranked them twenty sixth that 12 months, after which twenty seventh in 2021. 2022 is the primary 12 months they’ve stepped forward within the scores since 2017. And but, he made it paintings. He traded probably the most peak catching potentialities within the sport, Logan O’Hoppe, and previous first-overall select Mickey Moniak to the Angels in change for 23-year-old outfielder Brandon Marsh. Last night time, Marsh made the catch that despatched the Phillies into the postseason.
Ultimately, it’s a reminder that the whole thing begins and ends with possession. The Phillies have been ill of shedding, in order that they employed a confirmed winner. The Red Sox sought after to move in a distinct, less expensive, extra analytics-based path, in order that they employed Chaim Bloom. Dombrowski no longer being who the Sox sought after for the process anymore doesn’t imply he wasn’t up to the duty. He drafted one of the vital very best MLB skill of the previous few many years, constructed a number of postseason and championship groups, and pulled off one of the vital maximum improbable trades earlier than he got here to Boston. He did all of that for Boston, too. Now, with the Phillies within the playoffs and the Red Sox in final position, it’s time to give credit score the place credit score is due.