The Red Sox 2015 season has been a tumultuous one to say the least. They further exacerbated the turbulence early this morning with the hiring of former Tigers general manager/team president Dave Dombrowski. The deposed Tiger head man will take the mantle of president of baseball operations with the club, leaving current general manager Ben Cherington to make a snap decision about his future.
As of now, Cherington has chosen to walk from his current gig after just under four full seasons at the helm. The architect of the 2013 World Champions will aide Dombrowski in his transition into his new role in Boston, but will defer on any organizational decision made between now and the end of their season. By all accounts thus far, the ousting of Cherington seems to be more an unintended consequence of the Dombrowski appointment than a calculated plan by John Henry and the FSV ownership group.
Dombrowski has history with Henry from the duo’s time in south Florida, but the hire still is an oddly timed one. It was just a two week turnaround from Dombrowski’s release from the final two months of his Tigers’ deal to his introduction in the wee hours of the morning in Beantown. It also comes in the midst of manager John Farrell undergoing treatment for lymphoma and taking a medical leave from the dugout. The Red Sox organization has never been one to sit on their hands when change needed to be made, but was Dombrowski that sought after a commodity that this transition needed to be done mid-season in the middle of the night?
The work that he did with the Tigers was remarkable. As president and GM he took a team that was setting MLB records in futility and shaped them into a perennial pennant contender and two-time World Series participant. The fact that the last word in the previous sentence is “participant” and not “winner” would leave a sour taste in Tigers’ owner Mike Ilitch’s mouth. The team’s inability to get over the hump despite a rapidly rising payroll doomed him in the eyes of the fans. Now the Tigers are both old and expensive, and now see their top two pitchers from last year plying their trades in both Washington (Max Scherzer) and Toronto (David Price).
It will be interesting to see what approach he will bring to his reign in Boston. Is John Farrell a lame duck manager during his cancer treatments? The team says no. Who will the team target in free agency? That is going to be up to the new boss. Dombrowski’s track record in both Florida and Detroit should lead the fans to believe that greener pastures are ahead. Those pastures are going to be green because of the amount of cash that will be flashed to push forward. But, is this the path that is best for the organization? Red Sox Nation as well as FSV are going to be gun shy after the last two crops of cash splashing free agent courtships. Carl Crawford and company had to be salary dumped on the Dodgers a few years ago and they are already trying their damnedest to do the same with summer signings Hanley Ramirez and Pablo Sandoval.
You can expect Dombrowski to make the moves necessary to shed those deals from the payroll. He is also going to add some albatrosses of his own for the next guy to get rid of though. One thing is for sure, there won’t be any hesitation on Dave Dombrowski’s part when it comes to either front. He’s no stranger to fire sales or massive buying and trading sprees. He’ll get a month and change to get a lay of the land before he starts molding the roster in a way he sees fit. It’ll take a bit longer than that to see if this was just a hire of familiarity and convenience for them, or the start of another push towards contention.