Front Office

The Dombrowski Compendium

12 Comments

I wanted to highlight some work that Kurt Mensching has been doing over at Mack Avenue Tigers this week. If you haven’t visited his sight, he has been doing a VERY deep dive into Dave Dombrowski’s tenure as Tigers general manager. Kurt has looked at all of Dombrowski’s moves to try and capture his philosophies and tendencies to provide a very comprehensive evaluation. Having undertaken a similar exercise a couple years ago for The Hardball Times Annual I know how much work goes into something like this and he’s done an excellent job. Below are links to the various articles in the series and I encourage you to check them out.

(And he’s not done, plus I’ll have some comments about DD tomorrow)

12 thoughts on “The Dombrowski Compendium”

    1. That’s fine by me. We have enough young blood on the roster with Porcello, Perry, Avila, and Sizemore.

      To think that Rodney was the oldest pitcher on the staff last season and he was just 32. Now Nate the Great is the oldest.

      Porcello, Verlander, Jackson, Bonderman, Galarraga, Minor, Willis are all under 28 years old.

      1. SI also publishes a swimsuit issue.

        Teams with good farm systems tend to be teams who are relatively inactive in the trade (and free agent) market (there are exceptions, and they are exceptions). The Tigers’ farm would be rated better without the moves for Sheffield, Renteria, Cabrera/Willis and others. That said, there is adequate potential, if not depth, on the farm. Assuming, of course, the entire big league club isn’t traded for a fleet of ’93 Taurus’ at the Winter meetings (at least they’ll play cassette tapes).

  2. Nice assessment.
    For fun, lets compare some of DD’s contracts to some other bad ones-

    Which would you rather have:
    A) Sheff/Willis/Bonderman/Robertson/Inge $140 million for 16 seasons.
    B) Juan Gonzalez $140 million for 8 years.
    C) Barry Zito $126M for 7 years
    D) Mike Hampton $121M for 8 years

    Which would you rather have:
    A) Magglio Ordonez $105M 7 years
    B) Vernon Wells $126M 7 years
    C) Carlos Lee, Astros. $100M 6 years
    D) Alfonso Soriano, $136M 8 years

    Which would you rather have:
    A) Carlos Guillen $48M 4 years
    B) Aaron Rowand $60M 5 years
    C) Gary Matthews Jr. $50M 5 years
    D) Kosuke Fukudome $48M 4 years

    I think I’d choose A) for all of them

  4. I’m tired of reading how the Tigers payroll is being hamstrung because they let Ordonez get his option year.
    Magglio Ordonez hit .375 with a .978 OPS after post all-star break. In the AL, only Joe Mauer, Mark Teixeira, Matt Holliday, and JD Drew had higher OPS’s post all-star break. I still think letting Ordonez reach his vested option was very wise. It would of been tragic for the Tigers if they released him and he hit the way he did for some other team. Would Tigers fans be complaining that we didn’t reach the playoffs because we dumped Ordonez? Thank god we don’t know that answer. DD might of saved his job by keeping Ordonez.

    2ndly, is a question that nobody has been able to answer with any certainty:
    Who would be paying for Ordonez’s vested option years had the Tigers released him? Since when does releasing a player void a contract that includes vested options? He probably could of reached the milestones he needed with another team. Who would be paying the $18 million if we released him? I think we’d still be stuck paying it.

    1. I’m thinking if he didn’t vest, the contract would expire and he’d become a free agent. That’s just a logical choice on my part, not really sure.

    1. Letting Lyon go without a true offer would be a mistake. He should have been closing last year.

      That said, I think the “mistakes” are gonna come and lots of ’em. A distinct lack of cash is only going to make this ride back to the bottom of the Central a lot worse.

  7. Very active in the trade market for nothing but Cabrera. And now he wants him out . Its not only the drink problem . He had 095 risp for almost 2 months ( not a single extra-base to show , he was worst than the Kansas 9th man). He began batting only after the ASG. And failed under pressure
    Nice move dump Jurjens for someone who was known for been unable to hit in the AL. And counting with Inge in third not Guillen
    Braves are top 6 farm system and deals a lot
    Phillies and Rays are top 5 and have a WS ring or appearance to show for it
    For sure the Polanco- Urbina swap was the robbery of the century, but well odds are at least once the flute will sound

    1. Jcm’s post seems a little disjointed, some punctuation and grammar issues perhaps. But it dawned on me the second time I read it through that it is a rather brilliant piece of poetry.

      Try hearing it in the style of William Shatner’s Twitter reads on Conan.

      (no offense intended jcm, just having fun, peace)

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