The case against Detroit Tigers GM Dombrowski

Dave Dombrowski is considered by many to be a baseball genius. He built the Montreal Expos into a potential winner, he won a World Series with the Florida Marlins, and he has taken the Detroit Tigers to a World Series. However now that he is finishing up his 8th year as head of the Detroit Tigers it doesn’t seem that he is the man to turn this club into a bonified contended year in and year out.

Let us start with the positive, when Tigers’ owner Mike Illitch hired Dombrowski the Tigers were arguably the worst team in baseball. Their farm system was devoid of any promising prospects and the Tigers themselves were little more that a minor league club.

Dave was able to take that team, make some excellent trades along the way (getting Placido Polanco from the Philes for Uggie Urbina who is rotting in a South American prison comes to mind) but it now seems that Dombrowski is not capable of turning this team into a constant playoff threat. More that that though Dave has made a few pretty big mistakes along the way that are handcuffing his ability to add pieces in 2009 to get this team back to a World Series.

To put it a little more bluntly Dave has spent far too much money on guys undeserving. In baseball with an owner like Illtich, it is not how much money one spends, but how he spends it. The simple fact here is Dave has now mad enough mistakes that they should cost him his job. Since Illitch is ready to cut back on payroll, due to the down economy, the money Dave wasted on guys who are not producing had limited the pieces he can add to his first place team.

A quick look at a few of the bad contracts Dave has signed and their contributions to the 2009 Tigers:

• Magglio Ordonez will make 19.2 million in 2009, his stats are .257 batting average, 5 home runs and 32 RBI’s
• Dontrelle Willis will make 10 million dollars in 2009, he has gone 1-4 with a 7.49 era and is currently on the Disabled list to to a anxiety disorder
• Nate Robertson will make 7 million dollars in 2009, he has gone 1-0 with a 7.71 era

These are all contracts that Dave signed and contracts that have blown up right in his face. That is 42.2 million dollars in guys signed to deals they do not deserve. We are not even including the guys on big deals who are hurt or who have gotten old.

The simple fact here is this 42.2 million dollars in wasted payroll is enough to sign any big time left handed batter that this offense so desperately needs.

Over the past three years this team has collapsed in the second half of the season. Even in the World Series year of 2006, the Tigers failed to win their division, and got hot during the playoffs. While that may be the fault of the Manager, Jim Leyland (another Dombrowski hire), the simple act here is the Tigers have had one of the highest MLB payrolls lately with little tangible results to accompany it. This seems to indicate that Dave’s time in Detroit has run its course.