By Jeff Moss
July 31, 2012
DetroitSportsRag@gmail.com
For years I have defended Dave Dombrowski on this website.
And there have been plenty of reasons for my loyalty to the Tigers GM. He drafted Justin Verlander. He robbed the Marlins of Miguel Cabrera. He was the executive in charge of taking a 119 loss debacle in 2003 to an American League pennant in 2006.
And mainly because he wasn’t Randy Smith. Due to the total ineptitude of his predecessor, I always have graded Dombrowski on a sliding scale and gave the WMU grad the benefit of the doubt.
But after the last couple of weeks, my days of judging DD like he is a contestant in the Special Olympics are over.
Look, I will be the first one to admit that I have become increasingly impatient when it comes Detroit’s baseball franchise.
That is what happens when your favorite team hasn’t won a World Series in 28 years. This is what occurs when you choke away a title as a prohibitive favorite to a competitor that only won 83 games that season. Or when you blow a three game divisional lead with FOUR DAYS left in a season only to gag in extra innings of Game 163.
I could go on and on about 1,000 run predictions and The Ghost of Nelson Cruz, but I am pretty sure you get the point.
When you couple the last few years of Tigers dick teasing with the unpredictable future of the organization sans Mike Ilitch not to mention Miguel Cabrera and Justin Verlander’s pending 30 million a year contracts, well …. you can probably understand my WIN NOW mentality.
THIS was the year the Tigers needed to go all-in. They had the benefit of playing in one of the worst divisions in all of professional sports. The new Wild Card format worked in their favor. They added arguably the best free-agent in the offseason and their farm system had enough assets that any shortcoming exposed during the first four months of the season could be rectified at the trade deadline.
It is during this type of season that a chief executive’s moves are the most important. When you are THIS close to a championship, you can’t fuck it up. In the 118 years this franchise has been in existence, they’ve only won FOUR world titles which illustrates the rarity of their current situation.
Make a big mistake during an offseason in which you are fighting to get back to legitimacy or .500 baseball and most observers will give you a free pass. Colossally make blunder after blunder coming off a ALCS appearance in a season where you are one of the chalks to win it all?
Unforgivable.
Dave Dombrowski has had chance after chance to put this team over the top since November of last year and he has come up short almost every single time. Instead of relishing an unforgettable season, Tigers fans have been subjected to one of the most unenjoyable experiences in recent memory.
Here are just a few examples:
1) Dombrowski failed to listen to his scouts who were enamored with the talent of Cuban free-agent outfielder, Yoenis Cespedes, and watched the team with the lowest payroll in baseball (the Oakland A’s) snatch this freak of nature up for a bargain rate.
Instead of outbidding a destitute franchise that just had a movie made about them where Dombrowski “supposedly” had to pay to fill their vending machines in the fictitious Carlos Pena trade, the Tigers CEO decided to offer Delmon Young arbitration.
The same Delmon Young who has an anemic on-base percentage. The same Delmon Young who is a butcher in the outfield. And the same Delmon Young that the Minnesota Twins gave up last season for two middling at best prospects.
If Dombrowski would have followed his first instinct and inked the Cuban Sam McGuffie to a deal, the team’s offense wouldn’t be the issue it is today.
Swap Young’s horrid .699 OPS for Cespedes’ .902 OPS and I am guessing Detroit’s offense would be fairly unstoppable.
Hell, if Mike Trout wasn’t the second coming of Willie Mays Mantle, the defector would have RUN away with 2012 Rookie of the Year honor already.
And this isn’t hindsight from the DirtSpurt. This is what I wrote about potential offseason moves on January 11th of this year:
This was obviously before the Prince Fielder signing, but the point still remains since that acquisition was only a trade-off for Victor Martinez anyway.
Which, of course, leads me to my next complaint with Dombrowski …..
2) The way Dombrowski handled Jacob Turner over the last eight months is borderline schizophrenic and I am not sure if he was taking counsel on the young pitcher from Al Avila or Kristen Stewart.
In November of 2011, Turner was an untouchable prospect who DD would not include in a trade for Gio Gonzalez or Matt Garza.
(You might have heard of Gio Gonzalez. He ended up getting dealt to the nation’s capital where he is currently 13-5 with a 3.27 ERA, WHIP of 1.13 and a 2.5 WAR. Oops.)
In a very short period of time, Dombrowski went from coveting Turner like the Hope Diamond to treating him like a cum stained whore suffering from syphilis.
How else can you explain the trade of Turner, Rob Brantly and Bryan Flynn for Anibal Sanchez and Omar Infante?
Especially in the context of the Hanley Ramirez, Hunter Pence and Ryan Dempster deals?
The Tigers gave up their SECOND best youngster and the #35 propsect in all of baseball for two months of Sanchez and Infante’s pre-trade .312 OBP.
In comparison, the Texas Rangers shipped the #100 prospect in all of baseball (Christian Villanueva) and a Class-A “organizational depth” pitcher for Dempster.
Who, oh by the way, is freaking better than Anibal Sanchez!!!!!!!
Dombrowski didn’t set the market when he dealt his blue-chip pitching prospect. In retrospect, the Marlins must be hysterically laughing after seeing how the trade market developed AFTER they fleeced their former GM.
‘Can you believe we got more for a decent rental pitcher and an average second baseman than Hanley Ramirez? Three more deals like this with Dombrowksi and we might get even for the Cabrera trade.’
I mean, I wanted Turner gone as much as anyone in this city. Actually, more so. I wanted him dealt last winter BEFORE his dead-arm experience in Spring Training and the Angels shellacking.
What would you have rather seen happen in the last ten days? The Tigers send Brantly, Flynn and Casey Crosby for Dempster (a better package than what the Cubs ended up getting from Texas) and using Turner as a centerpiece for another deal or what they received?
It isn’t even close. Because …..
3) They still have Delmon Young batting fifth on a team with a $130 million plus payroll!!!!!
This is the guy who is “protecting” your $214 million investment in the batting order. A guy with a putrid Slugging Percentage of .397 who just swung at a 57-foot pitch as I type this.
Instead of signing Prince Fielder why didn’t Mike Ilitch purchase Van Gogh’s “Starry Night” and then hire Roman Nagel and Ed Norton’s character from “The Score” to guard it?
Would have had the same fucking effect.
Game after game, Jim Leyland pencils in Young’s name into the lineup against right-handed pitching even though his OPS versus them is an embarrassingly low .657.
And then we have to witness Fielder getting pitched around or watch him swing at a garbage pitches outside of the strike-zone because every opposing manager knows that DY is trash.
Adding a corner outfielder with a big bat to insulate Prince was the #1 deadline priority and instead of addressing that humongous need, Dombrowski chose a slight upgrade at second base instead.
Of course, this point would have been moot if he just would have fucking signed Cespedes. Which I begged for in this article as well over the winter.
4) He continues to employ a manager who thinks it is a good idea to continue running Young out there in the fifth slot in the first place.
Or who employs Raburn as a pinch-HITTER even though his offensive splits on July 31st are worse than most National League pitchers!!!!!
A manager who last week made it known that there was no way Quintin Berry and Andy Dirks could BOTH play in the same lineup even though the pair are both monumentally more equipped to bat against RHP than their anti-Semitic DH.
Dombrowski should have fired the senile old fuck on the spot after that comment. Or at least made an acquisition to take away that option from the relic. Instead he did neither and pulled a Ken Holland “I am happy with my team” routine.
That nonsense is spreading around Olympia Entertainment like “Pizza-Pizza.” Are Holland and Dombrowski comparing notes before making these asinine statements?
5) Dombrowski continues to oversee an operation that puts absolutely no priority on pitch selection or getting on-base.
This past Saturday morning, Leyland went on one of his rants about the importance of scoring runs as opposed to getting on-base.
It wasn’t much of a shock that a member of baseball’s “Flat Earth Society” would attempt to minimize getting on-base considering earlier this year he called OBP a “geeky stat,” but it was still a slap in the face to any fan of this team who believes in sabermetrics. Or basic math for that matter.
But this isn’t just an issue at the Major League level for Detroit. It is an organizational philosophy to teach prospects to ignore plate discipline.
You want to know why Nick Castellanos only has 27 walks in 406 at-bats in the minors this season? Well, read this quote from his Erie manager, Cris Cron:
“The only way a young hitter’s going to learn the strike zone is by swinging the bat. I’m a firm believe you have to swing the bat to learn how to take pitches. And in time, you will learn it — or you won’t.”
That is a quote from the organization’s Double-A manager. Probably the most important level of minor league baseball in any player’s development. With that kind of coaching, can anyone blame Castellanos if he isn’t exactly the “Greek/Cuban God of Walks?”
Although, who can argue with the Tigers recent history of developing positional players? In the last 20 years you have Travis Fryman.
And you have Travis Fryman.
And then there is ….. Travis Fryman.
(I’d include Curtis Granderson, but he didn’t become anything more than a platoon player until he hit the Big Apple.)
6) Which leads us to my final complaint. If Castellanos is so good that Dombrowski wouldn’t even THINK of trading him then why isn’t he in Detroit ALREADY?
Do I really need to list off the 20-year old kids who are making an impact in MLB this season?
And if Castellanos isn’t good enough to replace Young or Ryan Raburn RIGHT NOW, how do we know he is going to develop in the future?
Based on what? Dombrowski’s awe-inspiring history in Detroit of producing top shelf positional talent? Hell, Jeff Zucker developed more blockbuster primetime TV shows at NBC during his tenure as CEO at the Peacock Network than DD has produced offensive weapons in Motown.
Dombrowski has failed miserably since the end of last season. And if Ilitch didn’t insist on signing Fielder in January, can you imagine how much worse this offense would be?
DD had a chance to make a difference this season and propel his team into the playoffs with a legitimate shot to win at all.
Instead the GM has fucked up at almost every turn and we are left with one of the most disappointing Detroit sports seasons in recent memory.
It is ironic that in a town with four General Managers, the one who isn’t currently an abomination is the ONLY exec who doesn’t own a championship ring and who was mentored by MATT MILLEN.
Detroit Sports in 2012.
Welcome to my nightmare.