Revisiting Dave Dombrowski

Never one to shy away from kicking a hornet's nest, Shank catches up with former Red Sox general manager Dave Dombrowski:

Dave Dombrowski clarifies his feelings about the Red Sox, declaring he wants Boston ‘in the past’

HOUSTON — Terry Francona. Theo Epstein. Grady Little. Nomar Garciaparra. Manny Ramirez. Roger Clemens. Bobby Valentine. Carl Crawford. Adrián González.

"Name the Red Sox players and personnel Shank has run out of town over the years!"

It almost always ends badly for Boston baseball figures. And we can surely thank Shank include former Red Sox president of baseball operations Dave Dombrowski in that.

In September 2019, Dombrowski was fired less than 11 months after winning 119 games and the World Series.

It’s still amazing when you think about it. And the announcement of his dismissal came in old-timey cut-throat fashion. A midnight surprise, minutes after a Sunday night loss to the Yankees, while the Patriots were unfurling a championship banner and beating the Steelers at Gillette on “Sunday Night Football.”

For more than three years, Dombrowski has taken the high road, eschewing opportunities to gloat while the Sox finished last twice. Now that he’s brought his Phillies to the World Series, he’s admitting hard feelings about his final Boston days.

DHL Dan CXLIII - Strip Mining Away

With the Boston Red Sox doing far better than he anticipated earlier this year, and with no other news items to write about, Shank takes a look back and comes up with a new (and negative) way to describe some parts of former Sox GM Dave Dombrowski's tenure as general manager:

Dave Dombrowski doesn’t agree that he strip-mined the Red Sox to win a title, and other thoughts

Picked-up pieces while thanking Daddy Globe for not sending me to the Tokyo Olympics . . .

▪ Theo Epstein got all the credit for the 2004 curse-busting Red Sox even though Dan Duquette assembled half the championship roster. It was the oft-maligned Duke who brought Pedro Martinez, Manny Ramirez, Jason Varitek, Derek Lowe, Johnny Damon, Tim Wakefield, and Kevin Youkilis to town.

In this spirit we should recognize contributions Dave Dombrowski made to the Sox’ first-half success of 2021. John Tomase brought this to our attention in his column for NBC Sports Boston this past week and I tracked down Dombrowski to give him an opportunity for a belated victory lap.

Dombro’s been something of a dartboard ornament since Sox ownership dumped him near the end of the 2019 season, but it’s only fair to acknowledge that he brought J.D. Martinez, Nate Eovaldi, and Chris Sale to town, resisted offers to trade Rafael Devers and Matt Barnes, hired Alex Cora, signed Xander Bogaerts to a team-friendly long-term deal, and drafted outfielder Jarren Duran, who is projected to be a big thing at Fenway someday soon. Dombro also won a World Series and three division flags.

Is anyone else irritated bu his use of 'Dombro'? Unless I'm missing out on some sort of inside joke, I think this is disrespectful and juvenile.

The lasting local perception is that he strip-mined the farm system and left the Sox with nothing in the tank.

Any guesses as to which local sports columnist helped to push this notion?

Shank Pulls His Punches Again

Well, to the extent he can actually punch, I suppose...

The owners of the Boston Red Sox, avoiding any public discussion about the firing of then-general manager David Dombrowski, finally broke that spell late yesterday afternoon in a classic Friday evening news dump:

Sox owners finally field questions, but spare the clear answers

You say Tomato . . . I say (Tomato Cans? - ed) Bridge Year.

Almost three weeks after firing World Series winning GM Dave Dombrowski, Red Sox (and Globe) owner John Henry finally had a press conference at Fenway late Friday afternoon, before the start of the season-ending series against the moribund Baltimore Orioles.

I’d like to tell you that this session answered all of our questions about the firing of Dombro and the future of the team, but that would be an alternate reality. Accompanied by ubiquitous wingman Tom Werner and CEO Sam Kennedy, Henry (and Werner) responded to 26 minutes of inquiries, but it was a tad confusing and intentionally ambiguous. These guys rarely talk to us and, when they do, sometimes it feels like they are speaking a foreign language. It was an awkward, sometimes bizarre press conference.

Shank did have some questions, primary among them this one:

I asked if this meant the Red Sox are headed for the dreaded Bridge Year.

Three weeks ago, however, Shank didn't seem to have any questions at all about the firing:

Fair or unfair, this felt inevitable. I wrote last month that I would be shocked if Dombrowski was still GM next year and those words were greeted with stony silence on Jersey Street. No one came to the defense of a boss that had just won the World Series and had finished in first place in each of his first three full seasons.

Granted, three weeks between events allows for a few questions to develop but every time I see a journalist 'demanding answers' or 'they need to explain themselves', it's pretty obvious that most of the time they're looking for a groveling apology or something as servile. By the time the column's over, it's clear that Shank does not actually mention any unanswered questions, only his 'disappointment' over the three week delay between Dombrowski getting axed and this press conference. That's probably the best route to take when you're more or less questioning (or not) the guy who writes your paycheck every week.

Shank On Former Red Sox Boss Dave Dombrowski

Unable to rag on the New England Patriots after last night's 33-3 stomping of the Pittsburgh Steelers, Shank sets his sights on the former Sox president of baseball operations.

Dave Dombrowski is out as baseball boss of the Red Sox.

The news broke after midnight that Boston’s president of baseball operations had been fired.

Fair or unfair, this felt inevitable. I wrote last month that I would be shocked if Dombrowski was still GM next year and those words were greeted with stony silence on Jersey Street. No one came to the defense of a boss that had just won the World Series and had finished in first place in each of his first three full seasons.

Dombrowski did exactly what he was hired to do when the Sox brought him on board in the summer of 2015. He traded prospects for veteran talent. He signed big name free agents. He threw around contract extensions like fun-sized Halloween candies. He ignored draft and development. And he ignored a lot of the people who worked at Fenway Park.

To some extent, one of the ignored people also included Shank himself. Curious that this column seems to lay all the blame for this season's performance at his feet; nary a word about the players themselves. That part of it doesn't matter, as long as Shank has his fall guy.

I Wouldn't Worry About It, Shank

guys now john Henry is sitting in next to belichick and Dombrowski probably selling bill the team

— Jen McCaffrey (@jcmccaffrey) August 6, 2018

Hope my name doesn’t come up https://t.co/drDKqQ4Sth

— Dan Shaughnessy (@Dan_Shaughnessy) August 6, 2018

No Imagination Whatsoever

I got into my car yesterday around 11:00 AM to run some errands, and I turn on WEEI. What's Lou Merloni talking about? The Red Sox pitchers and all of their injuries. A few minutes later I switch over to 98.5 The Sports Hub. What's Marc Bertrand talking about? Same thing. Later in the day, what are Felger & Mazz talking about? That's right - same thing.

Imagine my surprise when I checked out Shank's latest column:

FORT MYERS, Fla. — The walls are closing in around Red Sox baseball boss Dave Dombrowski for the first time since he took the job in the summer of 2015.

Pitchers acquired by Dombrowski keep getting hurt. There has been criticism of the club’s shoulder workout program. Dombrowski has been having a few testy exchanges with reporters, and he’s getting heat from some of the nonstop sports talk shows back in Boston. (where he got the idea for this column! - ed.)

Dombrowski has been in big league baseball for 40 years. He has won a World Series and pretty much seen it all. How is he feeling about the Boston baseball experience now that it’s getting a little hot?

Shank does this (listen to local sports talk radio and apes their storylines) often enough that it warrants pointing it out one more time. Even Shank's Twitter timeline (posted yesterday around 2:00 PM) supports this. If you listened to any Boston sports talk radio yesterday, there's no need to read this column.

The New GM

Shank finds positive things to say about someone in the Red Sox organization:

FORT MYERS, Fla. — Commenting on his new president of baseball operations, Red Sox owner John Henry said this about Dave Dombrowski: “Very hands-on. He has a different style than we’re used to.’’

Amen. Dombrowski is nothing like his predecessors, Ben Cherington and Theo Epstein.

...and not so positive things to say about the last two GM's:

Ben and Theo were data-driven young guys with skinny jeans and smartphones. They ran the Red Sox from inside the basement walls of ancient Fenway. There is no need for sunscreen; one cannot get burned from the light of a laptop.

We rarely saw Ben or Theo. We didn’t see them much around the batting cage, the clubhouse, or the press box. When they did emerge from the bunker, they’d sometimes react to an approaching reporter by whipping out their cellphone for an urgent call.

...and remains hostile to anyone who can run numbers:

But now it is Dombrowski who runs the Red Sox, and we are seeing a return to the old days. Henry this week acknowledged that the Sox had became overly reliant on analytics.

Returning to the age of scouting is a clear concession to Dombrowski, who first learned about major league baseball while working for Hemond, a Cooperstown-worthy baseball man who succeeded in the majors long before the invention of Bill James.

Dombrowski is about winning NOW. He is not irrationally protective of the trove of draft picks assembled by Theo and Ben. Dombrowski has retained Mike Hazen and the basement boys of Boston’s baseball ops, but by Henry’s own admission, the Sox are no longer slaves to WAR, UZR, or the inestimable tonnage of skull-imploding numbers and projections assembled by men and boys who never played the game.

"Now get off my lawn!"

CHB Column Latest Underperformer

Six days after The CHB was laid to waste, scooped on the Dave Dombrowski hiring by the likes of Heidi Watney (!) and David Wade (!!), he picks up the pieces long enough to claim the renewed energy at Fenway owes itself to players worried about losing their jobs.

Who, exactly, is worried remains to be seen.

Pablo Sandoval has a huge contract, and the Red Sox don't have a viable replacement at third base. He ain't worried. Hanley Ramirez has an even huger contract, and while they have lots of outfielders, none of them is making $22 million a year. He ain't worried either.

Dustin Pedroia is injured but the heart and soul of the team and has a contract that runs through 2021. The only guy in the system who might be able to fill his spot today is the current starting centerfielder, Mookie Betts. He ain't worried.

And on it goes. The other underperformers have already been traded (Mike Napoli, Shane Victorino) or released (Justin Masterson), or are on the DL and unlikely to be booted without a long look next spring.

The other myth The CHB tries to push is that the Red Sox are suddenly going to return to the Stone Ages of baseball; that is, when the league RBI leader was the default MVP. Ha! Wonder if Shank knows the difference between the Red Sox and, say the Cardinals and Giants is not their scouts but rather their so-called baseball people NOT taking the stats guys' advice. Keep in mind, it was the stats guys who said don't sign Sandoval. The CHB, on the other hand, made it the platform of his off-season campaign. Who's the smart guy now?

Scooped!

Dave Dombrowski was named head of the Boston Red Sox's baseball operations last night, and Ben Cherington, the GM since 2011, has resigned.

It's the biggest story, hands down, of the Red Sox season in 2015, and The CHB is nowhere to be found.

Scoooooopppppeeeedddd!!!