Dave Dombrowski was able to build a World Series champion in Boston but the former Red Sox general manager was ultimately criticized for trading away too many prospects. Dombrowski is now down in Philadelphia as the Phillies President of Baseball Operations where he’s built a playoff contender a different way.
Phillies owner John Middleton had high praise for Dombrowski and addressed how he handled things in Boston and elsewhere on the Audacy original podcast "Baseball Isn't Boring" this week.
“If you think about it, he started in Montreal and pretty quickly moved to Florida. He went to Florida, the Marlins did not exist. They existed only on a blank piece of paper in Dave Dombrowski’s office,” Middleton said. “He created the entire organization including the scouting department, including the player development department. He had the draft, the expansion draft. He created the ‘97 World Champions out of thin air.
“He then went to Detroit and they had four or five consecutive losing seasons – maybe it was more like seven, they had at least one or two more under him. Then he slowly built the farm system up and then they started going gangbusters.”
Dombrowski built the Marlins from the ground up. He then went to Detroit where he had to take a different approach to build a contender.
Then, 21 years after winning his first World Series championship, Dombrowski helped lead the Red Sox to the Fall Classic in 2018. However, he was fired 10 months later and has received criticism for how he handled the Red Sox’ farm system.
“The only place that he’s ever gone through the farm system and traded players is Boston,” Middleton said. “He certainly didn’t do that with the expansion team in Florida and he didn’t do that with Detroit because if you’ve lost seven or eight years in a row you don’t have a farm system. I’ve lived that life.
Now, in Philadelphia, Dombrowski is doing it another way.
“My point is, he can do it however he needs to do it. He walked in here and said ‘John, you got star players. We don’t need more star players in Philadelphia, we need complementary pieces. We need to find people who can complement them,’” he said. “Yeah, we signed some signature players like Trea last offseason, there’s Kyle and Nick the year before that, but he basically put his mind to strengthening the bullpen with a lot of high-velocity arms.”
“He can do it however he wants to do it,” Middleton reiterated.
Middleton had high praise for Dombrowski as an executive and a person.
“Dave communicates with me perfectly, as well as any executive I’ve had, not just baseball, but any executive in any of our business,” he said. “I always know what Dave’s thinking. I always know what he’s planning to do and what he might do. I also know what his first, second, and third alternative is if his primary objective doesn’t work out. He’s great.”
Dombrowski was able to identify the right players to help build the Red Sox’ World Series roster back in 2018. He’s doing the same in Philadelphia.
“He’s just really good at identifying the little pieces and understanding how they fit together,” Middleton said. “One of the things I’m most proud of is you look at like Jose (Alvarado) and Cristopher Sanchez, they came out of great teams in Tampa, who have a history of being able to take players that have some strengths and weaknesses and work with them so they eliminate their weaknesses and emphasize their strengths. We’re now starting to be able to use that. Those two pitchers are a prime example.”
The Phillies also added former Red Sox pitcher Matt Strahm last offseason. Strahm was moved around from the starting rotation to the bullpen throughout the year and closed out the NLDS against the Braves.
There have also been some key additions in the field.
“You look at Brandon Marsh and (Christian) Pache,” Middleton continued. “I think that’s what he does also really, really well. When we’re talking about making trades, he can make a trade and take a guy that’s hitting maybe .240 like Brandon Marsh was when we got him from the Angels and he hit .286 for us the rest of the year. That’s really good. That’s also a way of coming out ahead on trades. He can take a guy who is a B or a B-minus player and turn them into an A or an A-minus player.”
Dombrowski was able to build a World Series champion in Boston, even with all of his perceived warts, and certainly looks like he’s headed in the right direction in Philadelphia.
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