On The Whole Dombrowski Situation

Are the Red Sox worse off now that Dombrowski isn't in Boston, or, uh, not?

screenshot of an image by Jonathan Wiggs, Boston Globe Staff

Nothing is ever free.

That’s something every long-term baseball fan knows. The 2018 Red Sox World Series win was wonderful, the most recent example of Boston’s unmatched two decade run of championships, but as we now know it came with a cost.

The Red Sox finished in last place two of the four seasons since, including this season. Meanwhile, Boston’s former GM/President of Baseball Operations, Dave Dombrowski, who was unceremoniously fired following a third place above-.500 2019 season, has moved on the Phillies. The Phillies, as you may have heard, are headed to the World Series after defeating the San Diego Padres in the NLCS last night.

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This small fact has suddenly placed a glaring spotlight on the state of Dombrowski’s former team, as my friend, ESPN writer Joon Lee, pointed out on Twitter.

Joon Lee @joonlee

World Series appearances since Red Sox fired Dave Dombrowski in 2019 Dombrowski: 1 Red Sox: 0

Joon sure isn’t wrong. As is usual with Twitter though, there’s some nuance that isn’t quite captured. To Joon’s credit, there’s more than just one Tweet.

Joon Lee @joonlee

Dave Dombrowski forced the Red Sox to trade Mookie Betts with poor salary management, got fired and then took took another franchise to the World Series Meanwhile, Boston's still struggling with the trade's fallout Man is playing chess, we're playing checkers

Again, Joon isn’t wrong, there’s just some more nuance to the situation. But Twitter doesn’t do nuance.

We’ve all been over this whole Mookie Betts thing a billion times here and I don’t imagine it’ll do much good to go over it again. If Dombrowski was under orders not to spend over a certain limit, then his decision to sign Sale over Mookie and make a bunch of other non-Mookie moves is and was a massive mistake. That was clear then, and it’s crystal clear now.

I imagine that Dombrowski wasn’t told he couldn’t do one or the other until after the first deal was done. Then, when the owners came to him with some austerity requirement, he likely balked. Enter Chaim Bloom. Bloom wasn’t the one who showed up ready to slash payroll because he thought it was fun. He definitely didn’t take the Boston job because he relished the idea of trading a future Hall of Famer out of the gate, but new GMs don’t typically shout “No!” in the face of ownership. The writing was on the wall, and we all know who wrote on the wall and what they wrote. The requirement to reduce payroll was part of the deal from the beginning.

Bloom could’ve done a bunch of other stuff in theory to open up future payroll space and then thrown $300 million at Betts (I’m making up numbers here but you get the idea) but that’s just not realistic. Essentially, Bloom took the job with a requirement to cut payroll and that meant he couldn’t re-sign Betts and that meant he’d have to trade Betts because you can’t let Mookie Betts walk for nothing.

This was the auspices under which Bloom took the Boston job.

Those auspices are not disconnected from Dave Dombrowski’s time in Boston. They are not disconnected from the 2018 Red Sox, and in fact they are not disconnected in any way from the era before Dombrowski took the Boston job. The 2018 Red Sox were Dombrowski’s team, but they were also Ben Cherington’s team. The 2018 Red Sox were paying David Price ($30 million a season), JD Martinez ($23 million), and Craig Kimbrel ($13 million, but they were also paying Pablo Sandoval ($18 million), Hanley Ramirez ($23 million), and Rusney Castillo ($12 million).

Dombrowski could’ve done what Bloom likely would’ve done, namely get rid of the expensive veteran contracts, cut down payroll while building up the farm system, and then build the major league team up from there. That’s the plan the current Red Sox are operating under. But he didn’t. That’s not the Dombrowski way. Instead, he added more veteran contracts (Price, Martinez), and dealt good prospects for more expensive vets (Kimbrel, Sale).

This put the Red Sox in the position to win in 2018. It also put them in position to lose in 2022.

None of this is to excuse trading Mookie Betts. In my view, which I’ve made abundantly clearly both here and elsewhere, you never trade a Mookie Betts. Never. You always find ways to make that work, to keep him in Boston, and then figure out the rest afterwards. But the post-2018 Red Sox under Dombrowski weren’t getting younger, cheaper, or deeper. They were getting older, more expensive, and the roster was getting thiner.

That kind of thing can always be papered over by more spending. Price is getting old and hurt? Sign Gerrit Cole! Sign Robbie Ray! That kind of thing has its downsides, but if you buy enough great players and supplement them with a few shrewd trades, you can keep winning. That’s the Dombrowski way. But it requires continuing to spend at the top of the league, or even above that.

Clearly, for better or worse, Red Sox ownership didn’t want to continue down that road, and clearly, for better or worse, Dave Dombrowski didn’t want to continue down any other road.

I know that last part because, well, Dombrowski is in Philadelphia now. But I also know that last part because that’s the exact road he’s continued down since taking over the Phillies. In his three years since taking over the team, Dombrowski has given out the following contracts:

• Kyle Gibson (34 years old when he signed): 3 years, $28 million

• Kyle Schwarber (29): four years, $79 million

• Zack Wheeler (30): 5 years, $118 million

• Nick Castellanos (30): 5 years, $100 million

• JT Realmuto (30): 5 years, $115 million

• Noah Syndergaard (30): 1 years, $21 million

That’s five contracts of three years or more, all for players in their 30s. That’s about $450 million in total dollars. That’s in just three years.

Compare that with what Bloom has done since taking over the Red Sox at the same time. Bloom gave Trevor Story six years, $140 million. That’s the only free agent contract he’s given out of more than two years. He gave Enrique Hernandez two years, $14 million, and Jake Diekman got two years, $9 million. He extended Garrett Whitlock for four years, $18.75 million (with two club options), and he extended Matt Barnes for two years and $18.75 million.

That’s it.

I’m not saying one approach is right or not. If it were up to me all teams would operate under the Dave Dombrowski formula. But that’s not the reality we live in. The Red Sox don’t want to run a $500 million payroll (or a $250 million payroll, for that matter). Perhaps if it meant winning every single year it could be justified. Perhaps. But that’s not the way things work.

Right now the Phillies are riding high, and good for them. They’re in their ‘2018 Red Sox' phase. Everything came together. Most of their big money signings have been good and healthy. They’re winning playoff games, and Phillies fans are climbing up flag poles in Center City and screaming swear words. Things are good.

Next year they’re going to have a $180 million payroll before they pay any of their non-guaranteed and non-arbitration players, and before they add anyone in free agency. Oh, and their farm system was ranked 24th by Baseball Prospectus this past season. Next year their team will be older and more expensive than it was this year, and that’ll likely be true again in 2024. At a certain point you damn the torpedoes and keep signing progressively more expensive free agents, or you pay the piper.

We in Boston have seen this before. It’s fun now, sure, but nothing is ever free.