Dombrowski mixes old, new
Dave Dombrowski’s official Red Sox title is president, baseball operations. But basically he serves as GM to baseball’s most expensive roster with an opening day payroll of $234-million, according to Cot’s Baseball Contracts.
Many in baseball were surprised when Dombrowski reached out last fall to hire former MLB player and Astros coach Alex Cora as his new manager, replacing John Farrell. Cora had never managed, except in the Puerto Rican Winter League and was now being asked to take over a team expected to play deep into October.
Ever since Dombrowski was in the White Sox front office back in the ’80s, his prototypical manager, his ideal, has been Jim Leyland. When Dombrowski was in Montreal, he tried to hire Leyland. He hired him when he got to Florida and the Marlins won a World Series. He hired Leyland in Detroit when he knew the Tigers were about to win and they went to the World Series in 2006. He sees in the younger Cora some of the same assets, albeit with far less in-game dugout experience.
“First of all it’s hard to be a duplicate of Jim in some ways just because he did it for so long,” Dombrowski said. “But it’s amazing. The basic similarities start with what makes successful managers in baseball and any business ... communication, not only from a baseball perspective but from a personal perspective, the ability to connect with (players). Jim did that very well and Alex does that very well. They do it maybe in a little bit different fashion, but they do that very well.
“They both have leadership capabilities. They have respect of the players. There are a lot of the foundation-type things that you look for in a manager that Alex possesses. Alex will have to learn more about the nuances of the game, which I think he will do from a managerial perspective. Jim had much more training in that regard. But it’s amazing when you have successful managers that they have a lot of the same characteristics.”
Dombrowski, a Chicago native is a throwback in many ways. He still travels with his team on most trips and grew up in baseball in an era in which putting in time, learning all aspects of the game under a respected mentor were things that got you moved up the ladder, not merely the love of analytics. Dombrowski matriculated in baseball with the Chisox under hall-of-fame GM Roland Hemond.
“There’s no doubt Roland was my mentor and I was very fortunate to start with someone like that (who) was not only a good baseball person but a great person and a great teacher,” Dombrowski said. “He took the time to help provide the foundation of my career for me.
“He made sure that I went out and scouted young ama- teur players and spent weeks at a time with some of our veteran scouts to learn their jobs. He also sent me to see our minorleague clubs, ride the busses with them so I could understand what player development was about.
“I travelled all over Latin America as per his directions. I had a chance to learn about that — Mexico, Dominican, Puerto Rico, Venezuela. That was the foundation that he laid for me. That was really the foundation of my career.“
After leaving the White Sox, Dombrowski’s first stint as GM was with the Expos from 1987 to 1991, building a farm system that became the envy of baseball. In ’91, he was lured away by the challenge of building the expansion Florida Marlins from scratch. He won a World Series in just the franchise’s fifth season.
“People forget that earlier in my career I was never in that (high payroll) situation,” he said. “You learn the importance of building an organization. Sometimes when you have a larger payroll you can cover up mistakes at times, or you can make more mistakes, but when you have a smaller payroll in a smaller market you don’t have that type of liberties, so you’re dependent on player development and scouting and quality personnel is emphasized even more.”
When he was forced to dismantle the Marlins by ownership, he moved on to Detroit after turning down the Blue Jays. He took over a Tigers team that in his first season lost 106 games and four years later, by 2006, had advanced to the World Series, losing to the Cardinals. In 2016 he was let go by the Tigers mid-year and after the season hooked on with Boston. The Red Sox went to the playoffs last year and look to be headed back again as one of the best teams in the game.
“What’s interesting for me is having that (small-market) background and then going to a big-market club like this with Boston where you can use all of those ingredients,” Dombrowski said. “Now you also add analytics, more use of statistics, sports science and the mental aspect of it, so you’re in a position where you have a lot more things that you can add, more than just your ability to run a big-league club and spend payroll dollars.”
After 31 years in charge, Dombrowski feels a responsibility to mentor others, handed down to him by Hemond. He has had close to a dozen former front-office colleague that worked under him spin off to become GMs on their own, like Dan Duquette, Frank Wren, Kevin Malone, Neil Huntington and others.
“I like to take time to teach the individuals in the organization about different parts that will help them prepare to be a general manager,” he acknowledged.
“So yes, I do take a lot of pride in that. There have been a lot of people that have spun off at times, but I know Roland had a lot too, so I’m not sure of exact comparison.”
His only goal this year is to win another World Series.