Philadelphia Phillies: Dave Dombrowski set to run the show

Dave Dombrowski will make the Philadelphia Phillies his record fifth team as chief exec.

Dave Dombrowski has another gig, and it’s a record-setter.

The former general manager of the Montreal Expos, Florida Marlins, Detroit Tigers and Boston Red Sox has reportedly agreed to terms to become president of baseball operations for the Philadelphia Phillies, succeeding Matt Klentak, who was reassigned at season’s end.

The Phillies’ decision to put Dombrowski in charge of their operations was first reported by The Athletic, with an official announcement expected next week.

In taking the assignment, Dombrowski, 64, becomes the most widely traveled chief executive in MLB history. He has spent all or parts of 30 seasons as a chief baseball officer in those previous four cities, beginning with the Expos as a 32-year old in 1988.

He moved on to the Marlins when they came into existence in 1993, was signed away from Florida by Detroit in 2002, and moved to Boston in 2017. The Red Sox let Dombrowski go during the 2019 season.

Until the Phillies brought Dombrowski into their front office, he shared with Branch Rickey, Robert Quinn Sr. and Pat Gillick the distinction of being the only men in baseball history to have functioned as chief execs of four franchises.

Rickey functioned as GM of the St. Louis Browns in the pre-World War I days before such a position existed. He also formally held the same position with the Cardinals, Brooklyn Dodgers and Pittsburgh Pirates until retiring in the mid 1950s.

Quinn operated the Browns after Rickey, and later owned and-or ran the Boston Red Sox, Brooklyn Dodgers and Boston Braves into the 1940s.

Between the late 1970s and 2008, Gillick was GM of the Toronto Blue Jays, Baltimore Orioles, Seattle Mariners and Phillies.

This year Dombrowski’s name has been most frequently mentioned in connection with an effort to gain a major league franchise for Nashville. So his decision to accept the offer to run the Philadelphia Phillies came as a surprise when it was reported Thursday.

Over the course of his career, teams run by Dombrowski have compiled a record of 2,376 wins and 2,443 losses. Those performances have been decidedly mixed.

Dombrowski’s 1997 Marlins won the World Series, as did his 2018 Red Sox. Between 2011 and 2014, his Tiger teams annually won the AL Central. His 2006 and 2012 Tigers lost to the St. Louis Cardinals and San Francisco Giants respectively in the World Series.

But Dombrowski’s teams have at times also been spectacularly bad. Following the 1997 World Series win, he was the architect of the teardown of the Marlins that sent them from 92-70 to 54-108 in one season.

His 2003 Tigers went 43-119, setting an AL record for defeats in a season. Only the Red Sox, which he ran from 2015 through mid-season 2019, compiled a winning record for him.