Red Sox: Was firing Dave Dombrowski, good, bad, or inconsequential?
Dave Dombrowski was fired on Sunday and that can be both unsettling as well as liberating for the Red Sox and their fans. Let’s take a closer look.
On one hand, we have perhaps the best executive in baseball in Dombrowski who literally just won a championship last year for the Boston Red Sox. He built up a perennial dud organization in the Tigers into a yearly playoff and World Series contender with a slew of elite players under his control like Max Scherzer, Justin Verlander, Miguel Cabrera, etc.
He came to Boston in 2015 and won a championship all while acquiring monumental pieces like Chris Sale, JD Martinez, David Price, and Craig Kimbrel along the way, as well as developing the homegrown talent like Xander Bogaerts, Andrew Benintendi, Mookie Betts, and Rafael Devers.
The Red Sox weren’t an organization in dire straits when Dombrowski came aboard, but he definitely helped exceed expectations by bringing in such big players and delivering a championship like his predecessors before he did in 2004, 2007, and 2013.
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So, the loss of him could be unsettling in that the Red Sox lose a great executive who seemed to have everything under control with this team.
And with contracts to key players coming up (mainly Mookie Betts and JD Martinez), it leaves the Red Sox fans worried that the team may lose one or both of those superstars.
In the case of JD Martinez, he has the ability to opt-out of his contract after this year. If he were to go, that’s a huge piece that the Red Sox will be losing as a middle-of-the-order perennial .300 hitter who can drive in over 100 runs and slug 35 homers in any given season.
In the case of Mookie Betts, he’s already turned down a contract extension and is now being subjected to trade talks entering the offseason as his contract nears the end come 2021. One could draw the conclusion his name is being shopped around so much because the team knows he won’t re-sign. I’d say that would make Red Sox fans nervous to no end that their heart and soul of the team will leave.
It appears with the loss of Dombrowski at the helm of the operation, that the Red Sox could be coming apart at the seams and we could be seeing a completely new team come 2020.
But now let’s look at the other side of the coin, where the loss of Dombrowski could actually be the best thing for this team in being able to retain both JD Martinez and Mookie Betts, as well as keep the roster together enough to contend for multiple championships in the coming years.
One thing that Dombrowski didn’t do very well for the Red Sox was to build a farm system. Yes, he developed the guys that were already here like Devers, Bogey, Mook, and Benny, but when we look down the docket, there isn’t much to build off of in the current Red Sox farm system.
To sum it up, the Red Sox’s farm system could be described as “thin” and “one of the weaker farm systems in baseball.”
Maybe with the departure of Dombrowski, this organization can start turning around the farm system and convince players like Mookie and JD to hang around because “the future is bright.”
Maybe the direction the team was heading was unappealing to players like JD and Mookie to stick around.
Maybe now that things are a-changin’ in Boston, the team will be able to hang on to these superstar players and compete for multiple championships.
Red Sox: Huge decisions to come in 2019 offseason. dark. Next
As a liker of the Red Sox since I was a little kid (a “young chap” if you will), I REALLY want Mookie and JD on this team moving forward. They are the two best players on this team and with them as the staples, Alex Cora at the helm, and Xander Bogaerts and Rafael Devers developing into perennial MVP-level players, this team will be a force to be reckoned with for the next near-decade………if everything can be kept together and nobody is lost.