Phillies hire Dombrowski to lead baseball operations
“I know John (Middleton) wants to win, and we have flexibility in finances.
But when I say that I don’t think it’s an unlimited amount of money. You always realize there’s some type of budget attached to that.”
— New Phillies president Dave Dombrowski
Put aside the $20 million that Dave Dombrowski is expected to earn over the next four years, since he’s one of the very few non-playing people in Major League Baseball able to do so.
And forget for a moment the three World Series appearances by teams he built in the glittering past, along with the seven divisional titles, the two World Championships all in the space of a front office career that has passed the 40-year mark.
Shelve also his future plan, the one in which Dombrowski would grow from consultant to likely front office leader in Nashville, which was expected to make a strong push for an MLB franchise next year, but instead has become just another victim of the Great Pandemic Delay.
It’s just sick what fate can do sometimes. “For my own perspective, and not that it’s a big deal, but I’ve already had COVID,” Dombrowski dropped during a Zoom media call Friday. “I had it like, a month ago and had worked through it. But it was not an easy couple of weeks. I’ve got antibodies now so if any of you see me you don’t have to be afraid that you’re going to catch it from me. And I still wear my mask when I’m out and about.”
Dombrowski left all that history and intrigue behind this week when he somewhat suddenly took up Phillies owner John Middleton on the job offer he’d occasionally pitched for months.
Not that it’s a significant win or anything.
“This is a great day for the Philadelphia Phillies,” Middleton trumpeted in a team statement Friday.
You might wonder, however, what kind of career move it is for one of baseball’s most successful front office bosses. Dombrowski, a youthful, confident and somewhat selfdeprecating man of 64, not only agreed to go to Nashville to shake off the clouds he’d left behind with his early dismissal from Boston in 2019, he went with anticipation of leading a successful MLB startup, which he did in 1991 with the Florida Marlins, who would win the World Series six years later.
He had risen through the front office ranks first with the Chicago White Sox, eventually ascending to the general manager’s role in Montreal in 1988. He was there a few years, in Florida for 10 more, spent 14 years in Detroit and was seemingly settled in Boston when he celebrated a World Series win in 2018. But there were allegations of sign stealing (Dombrowski was subsequently cleared of involvement by a league investigation), and there was the acknowledgement that despite the long track record of success, “I wasn’t prepared to say” goodbye.
“I really thought I’d have another four-, five-year run at that point,” Dombrowski said of his Red Sox dismissal. “Fortunately, my health’s been good, I love what I’m doing, always have; I’m passionate about it. ... (But) it didn’t end the way I wanted it to.”
He says a bevy of calls from his longtime executive counterparts and team owners followed, some carrying job offers, including those from Philadelphia from Middleton and outgoing team president Andy MacPhail, a longtime friend of Dombrowski. But while still getting paid by Boston, consulting in Nashville seemed the right call. Dombrowski and his wife, Karie, packed up and moved to Tennessee, and contracted a house to be built. Then history intervened.
Baseball’s financial losses over the past year due to the COVID-19 crisis are monstrous. Nashville’s anticipated bid went down the drain with them. At least for a
while. That’s why Dombrowski listened when MacPhail called last week and left a message. He was told that Middleton planned to call again on Tuesday for another pitch of sorts.
The timing couldn’t have been better. “I got info on Monday and again on Tuesday from MLB that, although a premium market, a top market, that the timing due to COVID, the uncertainties facing the game, it wasn’t going to take place in the timeframe of 2021 presentations,” Dombrowski said of a Nashville bid. “The timeframe was to be determined ... pushed back a little bit. With that, my responsibilities, what I needed to do, were going to be diminished.
“It just so happened, a coincidence situation, John called me Tuesday morning. He did not think himself from what he knew that expansion was going to take place in the near future.”
An hour or so, and another MacPhail contact to run through preliminaries, and the wheels were in motion for another Dombrowski career move. Maybe it’s not Florida or Nashville, but is Philly really that much different from a rebuild?
“I consider it a re-tool, not a rebuild, for sure,” Dombrowski said. “The way I look at it, we have a star player in right field in Bryce (Harper) and some other good players around him. Any time you have three good starting pitchers like we have at the top of the rotation you’re in pretty good shape to be competitive. There’s other things that need to be done, but with (Aaron) Nola, (Zack) Wheeler and (Zach)
Eflin, that’s a good place to start with some other arms behind them.”
It was also a good place to end that topic, since there aren’t that many other pitchers to talk about from a relief standpoint. The Phillies’ bullpen is another thing from 2020 that will live in infamy.
“By no means was it a strength of the organization,” Dombrowski said with a barely suppressed chuckle. “I guess the good part of it is that usually if there’s an area you can fix ... it’s a bullpen.”
Supporting players aside, the most important personnel consideration is premier catcher J.T. Realmuto’s move toward free agency. The blame for not locking down Realmuto was slapped on former general manager Matt Klentak, probably the main reason he’s now a Phillies front office consultant with two years of GM pay remaining on his contract.
Dombrowski expects Klentak to stick around for the occasional discussion, at least until he gets another job. The new president of baseball operations will probably bid a fond adieu to the old president, as MacPhail previously said he would gladly step aside if “a big fish” was brought in by Middleton.
Consider it reeled in.
“I know John wants to win, and we have flexibility in finances,” Dombrowski said. “But when I say that I don’t think it’s an unlimited amount of money. You always realize there’s some type of budget attached to that. We will work within that. But we want to win this year. We will do what we can.”