Dave Dombrowski signed a 4 year contract extension meaning he’ll be leading the Tigers through the year 2011.
This of course is great news as Dombrowksi has been instrumental in the Tigers success. It is also sure to irritate the bejeesus out of Rob Parker who called Dombrowski the worst GM in Detroit earlier this year.
Rob, Let us know how good that crow tastes.
Double D is doing a pretty good job after taking over an O-for-a million team. The farm is much better and the team is now a sound cohesive unit. Maybe we will not reach the series next year but we will also not be the laughing stock either. DD brought heer what we all desired, respectability and a shot at the series. Done… (Tastes like chicken I hear) 😉
S/B >>> DD brought here …. ( dont want to call out a writer and have a misspelled word now do we)
Parker’s an idiot, but we already knew that.
Good to see the first move of the off-season is locking down DD.
Excellent news. You can really sense that Illitch is committed to turning the Tigers into a perennial contender.
As for Parker: between him, Albom, and Sharp, Detroit must have the most incompetent set of sports columnists in the civilized world. It’s not even a matter of hindsight; anyone who follows professional sports and has half a brain knows that turning a baseball franchise around takes much longer than turning an NFL or NBA team around.
Can anyone help me with some minutia? Please let me know where I am wrong, because I am missing something.
In November of 2001, we named Dombrowski president. In April of 2002 he fired Randy Smith and became GM. Dombrowski had a 5 year deal; that took care of 2002,2003,2004,2005, and 2006. A four year extension would then, logically, take him through 2007,2008,2009, & 2010.
Yet everyone is saying he is already under contract for 2007, and the deal extends him to 2011. Did I miss a one-year extension somewhere? Am I wrong on his original contract details? Help! I’m confused!
(Regardless, I am THRILLED to have him until 2010, or 2011, or whenever he’s signed trhough.)
Got to love these nuggets of Parker-grade idiocy:
“Clearly, nothing Dombrowski has done has worked.”
Uh-huh.
“Clearly, Weaver is a better pitcher than Bonderman.”
Weaver: Career ERA 5.58; K/9 5.99; 2006 line: 8-18, 5.76 ERA, 1.51 WHIP.
Bonderman: Career ERA 4.72 (and has dropped annually); K/9 7.49; 2006 line: 14-8, 4.08 ERA, 1.30 WHIP
Right, Rob.
Perhaps the most prophetic line in the whole story comes from Parker’s hand-selected quote of DD (to illustrate how crazy Parker thinks DD is):
“The biggest stride is within the system,” Dombrowski said. “So it hasn’t been an easy situation. But it’s one that we’ve had a lot to tackle. And I think we’re in a process of starting to see some results.”
I think that Parker not liking him is DD’s most ringing endorsement of his worth.
I think that Dombrowski did sign a one year extension last year. I could be wrong though.
Walt
Every city has a set of incompetent columnists. Okay, Parker is more annoying than Bill Plaschke, but could he be any worse than Jay Mariotti, really? At least we have Mike Rosenberg to read.
As for Dombrowski and his staff being given extensions, I have a feeling we have many good years ahead.
Well, let’s just say it wasn’t a very hard thing to come out with that article at the beginning of the season with a pretty good chance you were going to be right.
I mean, if you were blind and had only been hearing numbers for the past 12 seasons.
Parker was just hedging a bet that a bad team was going to just…stay bad. A pretty good bet, in his mind, since he’s probably written the same article ten or eleven seasons in a row. And it worked then, didn’t it?
I just think it’s funny that you blame a man for something that’s not working when it turns out he’s the reason it’s working…BEFORE THE SEASON EVEN STARTS. Wow, what an educated prediction!
Excellent news!
Eh, I can’t imagine Parker would be able to hold a job for very long if he actually believed half of the idiotic things he writes. It’s just his schtick to be outrageous.
Great news about Dombrowski.
I’ll happily join the Parker pile on.I’m not sure if he’s more annoying in print or on the radio(although,to be honest,I stopped reading or listening to him along time ago).Bilfer,if you’re looking for topics to post on this off-season,how about the best and worst in Detroit print and electronic media?
Some of the younger folks here might not be aware that Mariotti used to work at the Detroit News.
I guess we can all agree that our opposition to Parker’s drivel is one of the many reasons (Parker’s not alone) we’d rather be here with Bilfer and gang!
That article was funny.
Thanks for posting this article from Rob Parker. It is a typical example why it is a waste of time to read most mainstream sports journalists. Compared to the analysis offered by this website, Rob Parker is a hapless dope who is only read because he was proclaimed a meaningful voice by the Detroit News. Any examination into the validity of his opinions exposes him for the moron that he is. This blog is by far the best place to go for Tiger opinion, and easily outdistances the Detroit sports pages in Tiger coverage (without daily access to the players by the way).
Lowe and Guidi are pretty good I think. I think calling columnists morons is totally fair (certainly when the columnist is Rob Parker), but I don’t think it’s fair to say most sports journalists are.
Half the time I think they’re the only journalists who know how to do their jobs.
Guidi must have been rotated out with the change of ownership at the Freep. He did fine. I can’t even find where he is now on google. I like Lowe. But Jon Paul Morosi is a real treat. The Freep’s got a great one in him. I agree, we do have to make the distinction between beat writers, who are there every day and who report, and many columnists, who, well, suck. But when Morosi wrote a column, I read it. It’s really unfair to sell short what he brought to Tigers coverage with his writing and insight.
I’m sure Bilfer agrees, blogging is a lot easier with beat writers doing their jobs.
I thought pairing Tom Gage and Parker was genius. On one hand, we have the beat writer, who knew the team inside and out and whose predictions turned out to be pretty good week to week. On the other hand, we have this columnist who saw the team play, like, once and who doubted all along. I wondered what the point was, unless the point was to show how out-of-touch Parker’s opinions were. In any case, I didn’t even bother reading him by the time he started “following” the team in October.
I knew Ilicth wouldn’t let him get away. I read the Rob Parker article earlier this year too. Hey Rob, guess what, Mike Ilitch calls “the best GM in baseball.”
Chris Y, Weaver’s career ERA is 4.58, not 5.58. This is the first year Bonderman has been better than Weaver. I’m not saying the trade was bad (we got more value from Pena than Weaver prior to this year, plsu we still have Bonderman who looks like he’s pretty clearly better than Weaver going forward.) but I thought the correction was worth making.
Thanks Nick, I must have wrote his ERA down wrong (4.58 not 5.58). Doesn’t change the other numbers though.
Still, I would not say this is the first year Bonderman has been better than Weaver. I would argue that Bonderman has been more valuable since he came into the league. They both had high ERA’s in 2003. But Jeremy has more CG, more shutouts, 100 more Ks (623 vs. 510), given up less HRs (86 vs. 104). Plus, he’s managed to increase his winning pct. each year despite playing on fairly inept teams over that span (expect 2006, of course), while Weaver is basically .500 over that span with some pretty good NYY, LAA, and STL teams.
I don’t think there is much debate over which of these two has better “stuff”, but Bonderman was young and learning, while Weaver had already shown what he had.
Parker can argue a wash, but its still a poor position.
Nick,
I am sure you agree on Bonderman v. Weaver issue, just wanted to make my case a bit more for why Parker’s article was off-base.
I read the papers pretty irregularly anymore-most of my Detroit sports news comes from listening to the radio while I’m driving.I look forward to Tom Gage’s appearances with Mike Valenti and Terry “Giggles” Foster,in the 15 minutes out of an hour when those two discuss sports instead of doing Oprah for Guys.I also like Pat Caputo(I know he writes for the Oakland Press,although I can’t ever remember reading him).While I don’t always agree with him,he seems to have a serious affection for baseball and has a respectful give and take with his callers.
Weaver has alot more IP over the last three years than Bonderman, and the last two have both been right around league average.
Most of Bonderman’s improvement from 03-04 was due to a decrease in league wide scoring. His ERA+ went from 92-93, so he only really improved by 1% compared to league average.
However, I’ll take a 24 year old Bonderman coming off the best year of his career vs. a 30 year old Weaver coming off one of his worst years, and it isn’t very close.
As for the local writers, Guidi retired last year. That’s why he’s not around. I too really like Morosi, both his beat writing and his analysis. I liked Knobler pre-Leyland but he doesn’t seem to do any analysis any more. He just automatically agrees with Leyland.
I also agree with Kurt, without the beat writers we wouldn’t have any information. They’re also in a tough spot in that they can’t really be too critical or they run the risk of having access which is key for their job.
As for some of the other columnists, Parker is a joke. He has no redeeming qualities as a writer or analyst. I became much more of a fan of Sharp during the Tigers run in that he was often the voice of reason.
“However, I’ll take a 24 year old Bonderman coming off the best year of his career vs. a 30 year old Weaver coming off one of his worst years, and it isn’t very close.”
Bingo. Anybody talking about trading Weaver for Teixera? (Weaver’s a free agent–but you get my point.)
I don’t think beat writers are as valuable as they once were. Most days, the stuff they put in the newspapers is practically a rote recitation of the notes you can find on the Tigers website. To me, Lynn Henning is the only Detroit sportswriter who provides any unique analysis/insight about the Tigers.
As for Knobler’s loyalty to Leyland, it pales in comparison to Steve Grinzel’s apparent loyalty to John L. Smith:
http://www.mlive.com/spartans/weblog/index.ssf?/mtlogs/mlive_grinzongreen/archives/2006_11.html#200533
I love DD and am thrilled to have him locked up for years to come. On the Weaver vs. Bonderman thing I have a really hard time with that. At the time I was heart broken with the trade because I loved Weaver and his competative fire for the game. And at the time of the trade the only “sure” thing we were getting was Pena. In the present time though I would have to say Bonderman is a far better fit for us. Plus can any one picture Weaver going through a 119 loss season??? I have to say Congrats to Weaver, but I would still take Bondo. I just hope he finds consistency soon.
Dombrowski is the best GM In the league right now. The Tigers got so lucky to get him.
LMAO