Image may be NSFW.
Clik here to view.
One of the many reasons Pat Gillick is arguably the most respected executive since Branch Rickey is that as he moved from building the Blue Jays franchise from scratch to taking the Orioles to first place from wire to wire in 1997 to winning 116 games in Seattle to taking the Phillies to a world championship is that he always adapted to the city and organizational environment.
“Pat had few people that went everywhere with him,” says Gordon Lakey, one of the rare scouts who connected dots from Toronto to Philadelphia. “He never went to a team and wiped it clean. He always worked with whomever was there when he arrived. That’s one of the many things that makes him so rare. He respects people, he is compassionate.” And brilliant. He still remembers a number in Otisfield, Maine he dialed at 3 am PDT to excitedly relate that the Blue Jays had signed an unsignable third round draft choice named John Olerud.
What has made the first four months of Dave Dombrowski’s tenure as President of Baseball Operations with the Red Sox is that he came in empowered by ownership to do whatever he wanted to do and hire whomever he wanted to hire and he has pulled a Pat Gillick. As he spent time with front office, analytics, scouting and uniformed personnel after taking the job on Roger Clemens’ birthday (August 4), Dombrowski said he was not only impressed but effectively taken back by the organization that Theo Epstein and Ben Cherington had assembled over 15 years.
He brought in Frank Wren as an Atlanta-based assistant. He worked with the pro scouting department to hire a couple of veteran scouts. He made it clear he wanted a heavy emphasis on scouting and developing pitching, which worked; Cherington and Mike Hazen had begun the process, had Brian Bannister in place and Dombrowski simply emphasized and reinforced what was in place.
As media speculation guessed at names that worked with Dombrowski in Montreal, Florida and Detroit, he respected and reinforced the personnel in place. “There’s no question that a lot of us were concerned about what was going to happen when the change was made,” says one member of the front office. “Those concerns were erased quickly. Dave is very clear about what he wants to do, and what he believes is important. But the transition has been almost seamless. I still believe that Ben could have fit well.” But ownership’s lack of honesty with Cherington created an irreparable split, and when Dombrowski arrived at Logan Airport, Ben was already in the Hudson Valley.
Mike Hazen was moved up to General Manager, which was no surprise as Hazen had already been interviewed for GM jobs and is regarded through the industry as one of the brightest and most honest stars on the horizon. Amiel Sawdaye, who was interviewed for the Toronto GM job, Ben Crockett, Mike Rikard, Brian O’Halloran, Allard Baird and were kept in place, with Quattlebaum moving up to pro scouting director. Bannister was signed to a five year contract as director of pitching development, with Dombrowski clearly appreciating his creativity and the work he did with pitching coach Carl Willis in the two month improvement of Rick Porcello, Joe Kelly, Robbie Ross and others.
“I feel very fortunate to be given the opportunity to work with this organization,” Dombrowski says. “They have been very welcoming to me. We were able to get on the same page very quickly, and the exchange has been very open, very productive. There is a lot of talent in this organization, particularly on the lower levels, and we’ve had a lot of teams that have been eager to talk to us about that talent.
“We gave up a lot of talent in the deal with San Diego for Craig Kimbrel, but I thought he was an important piece to acquire. But there shouldn’t be a misconception about my trying to trade off young talent. I love young players. I love development. In some situations, it’s hard to win and develop, spend on the major league level and the developmental level at the same time. But with the Red Sox, it is possible.”
Dombrowski knows that John Henry took Bud Selig’s calls and ignored the Commissioner’s Office concerns about spending in the draft before the new basic agreement structured limitations on what clubs can invest in the draft and overseas on players before they turn 23 years old. He made it clear to Rikard that he admired and will encourage the amateur scouting. He understood that international scouting director Eddie Romero is recognized industry-wide as a rising star.
Dombrowski got Henry’s OK to spend whatever was required to get David Price for the front of the rotation. He used four young players to get one of the best closers in the sport. He listened to his front office, coaching and pitching development staffs on Rick Porcello, Joe Kelly, Eduardo Rodriguez, Brian Johnson and Henry Owens and used Wade Miley to get an eighth inning swing-and-miss reliever in Carson Smith who is a distinct contrast to Kimbrel, a reliever several teams had pursued, as well as a depth lefthander in Roenis Elias, whom the Pirates were trying to acquire as a backend starter.
In fourth months, Dombrowski has successfully added to the pitching while melding in with the organization in place. He made it very clear in his meeting with Hanley Ramirez what is expected of him. He listened to Hazen and other who strongly believe Pablo Sandoval’s two-a-day workouts in the Dominican and his new diet chef will result in a return to his 2014 form.
His style has been Gillickesque, respecting those with whom he came in to lead, living in a Boston hotel, working long hours after his morning runs along the Charles, making certain that his I’s are not too close together and that we is the operative word. He makes it clear that he enjoys learning from an organizational culture passed on by Epstein and Cherington.
When Dombrowski took over, several people reminded us that when he took over the Tigers and opened the season, he fired GM Randy Smith and manager Phil Garner in April. That, however, was a 119 loss team. The Red Sox team he took over was a last place team, but hardly one capable of losing 119 games, and by the time April rolls around, at least 20% of the opening day roster will be his acquisitions.
This is a man who began his baseball career working with Roland Hemond, he of unique humor and modesty. He well remembers being fired by Ken Harrelson, or what it was like to be called in two days after winning the 1997 World Series and told to dump payroll at the cost of competing. Or what it was like this past July to be frozen out by ownership, not told until three days before the trade deadline to move Price and fired after the most successful decade in Tiger history with an ownership voice saying “he didn’t win a World Series” as he packed up his belongings.
Gillick left Toronto and went to Baltimore, Seattle and Philadelphia believing he could win, pulled everyone onto the same page and won. It is clear Dombrowski badly wants to win another World Series, but has taken the wheel and made it not about himself, but about the Red Sox.
And all the while, he has what Cherington did not have—ownership having his back and looking him in the eye. While grasping what Cherington and Hazen did have—the respect of almost everyone from 4 Yawkey Way to Jet Blue Park.