Just after midnight, news broke that the Boston Red Sox were firing general manager Dave Dombrowski, despite winning a World Series a season ago.
Unfortunately, for “Double-D,” the 2019 Red Sox have not lived up to their $228 million payroll, which is the highest in Major League Baseball. The Sox are currently 76-67, which is 17.5 games behind the New York Yankees in the American League East.
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Dombrowski, of course, is a very familiar name around these parts as he was the Detroit Tigers GM from 2002-2015. While running the show in Detroit, Dombrowski built teams that consistently contended and even appeared in a pair of World Series, where they were favored to win but fell short.
After firing Dombrowski in August of 2015, the Tigers made the decision to replace him with Al Avila, who has held the title general manager ever since.
Avila has been an absolute train-wreck as Tigers’ general manager and the team seems stuck in a rebuild that may just last forever
If the Tigers (I am talking to you, Chris Ilitch) are truly serious about building a team that will make Tigers’ fans proud, he will put his stubbornness behind him and bring back Dombrowski immediately.
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Now, it’s important to note that even if Ilitch would let bygones be bygones, there is no guarantee that Dombrowski would accept the invitation as the two did not exactly part on the best of terms.
In 2017, Dombrowski said the only reason he ever came to the Tigers in the first place was because of Mike Ilitch, who has since passed away.
From Detroit Free Press:
“It was nearly the whole reason,” Dombrowski, the former Tigers general manager and current Red Sox president of baseball operations, said. “There’s no question that I wouldn’t have been in Detroit without him.”
“We shared a lot of great memories,” Dombrowski said, shortly after learning Friday night of Ilitch’s death at age 87. “He did everything you could have asked for from an owner – and more.
“He was a true competitor and gave us what we needed to win. He was tremendous not only for baseball, but he was tremendous for the city of Detroit and what he did for everybody in the community.”
While with the Tigers, Dombrowski’s goal was to get Mike Ilitch a World Series title and though that ship has sailed, maybe, just maybe, he can still bring one to the fans and the Detroit Tigers organization.
Dear Chris Ilitch: It’s time to bring back Dave Dombrowski
