Tigers release GM Dave Dombrowski. Didn’t see that one coming.
Tigers let GM Dombrowski go today. I’m actually pretty surprised about the timing of it. Dombrowski pretty much nailed the trade deadline-- yes the Tigers sold at a time when they’re normally buyers, but we got some good talent as we unloaded some hefty free agent baggage. I was quite pleased with DD’s moves, and it seemed the national sports writers thought highly of it as well.
Now Dombrowski’s contract was up at the end of the year, but I don’t think anyone saw him not getting a new contract, and I definitely don’t think anyone saw a mid-season firing of one of the best GMs in baseball.
My guess: Dombrowski was standing strong by his struggling manager Brad Ausmus, while owner Mike Illitch is probably itching to fire him and go with a more experienced skipper. Neither man would budge, so Illitch said “see ya” and budged him right out the door. Next out the door: Brad Ausmus.
ETA: Ninja’d by Bob!
I’m reading about the Dombrowski firing, and I find it interesting that Illitch says the the Tigers “had some success” with DD. Ouch! Four division championships in four years, five playoff appearances since the worst season in MLB history in '03… I gotta say that as a fan, I *do *like that the old guy wants nothing but a world championship and nothing else matters. It’s nice to have an owner with that as his #1 priority. Hope they can make it happen before he croaks.
All this reminds me a bit of Admiral Ozzel getting the boot. But hey, good luck with that new job, Al Avila!
Wow. Didn’t see that coming. I thought they could have got more for Cespedes (Zach Wheeler maybe), but they didn’t get completely hosed. And they did get a pretty decent haul for Price. Dombrowski set the Tigers up pretty well for 2016 but I guess Ilitch didn’t like the plan. Maybe he thought they should have been buyers for 2015.
I am flabbergasted as to why Dombrowski was fired now. I can understand (though I would not agree) with firing him in the offseason, but why give him the authority to make a number of extremely high profile trades and THEN fire him? It’s bizarre.
Predictably, there is much talk of Toronto getting Dombrowski to be team president (assuming he is not made GM, which would be possible if Toronto fails to make the playoffs and fires the current GM.)
Cool! Robin did exactly what Mike Piazza should have done to Clemens in the 2000 WS. And hopefully Rogah would not have gotten the catcher into a headlock.
I (and Mets fans) mostly remember Ventura for the Grand Slam Single that ended the 1999 NLCS in extra innings.
(And Nolan as the pitcher the Mets should not have traded)
Oh rats, another errata on my part. The GSS only ended game 5. The Mets would have to go to Atlanta to win that series.
I think Dombrowski has something going on. Ilitch said that he was being released to pursue other opportunities. Ilitch is loyal to those who are loyal to him and I think Dombrowski wanted out in order to go somewhere. Otherwise, why fire a guy only to hire his assistant?
Yeah, perhaps DD finally just said to himself, “Self, there’s only so much you can do with this team. You’ve been given the money, you’ve made the trades, you’ve put the pieces in place, there’s nothing more I can do to make it happen in Detroit.”
Now I’ve always assumed Ausmus was DD’s guy. Maybe, and now my fear is, Ausmus is Illitch’s guy. Perhaps, DD wanted the option to move Ausmus out, but Illitch, loyal old coot that he is, said no. So DD said, If my hands are tied, let me out!
I just can’t get over the timing of this. It’s just bizarre.
We have a new MLB affiliated minor league career home run record holder. Mike Hessman of the Triple A Toledo Mud Hens hit his 433rd minor league home run to pass Buzz Arlett. I’ve never heard of either one of them. Good luck finding a list of all career leaders.
A few years back, maybe 2007 or 2008, I saw Mike Hessman hit a home run in Toledo. He hit it over the left field wall, over the stands and the concourse, and over Monroe Street. It had to have gone 470, 480 feet, at least. It was a stunning home run.
It’s a shame he never stuck in the big leagues because it was fun watching that dude hit that home run.
Buzz Arlett was an interesting case in that he hit pretty well in his one MLB season, but back then you could do pretty good in the IL or PCL. Being from California, Arlett chose to play there most his prime years. California was a really, really long way from MLB before air travel was common.
Mike Hessman: Master dinger whopper & dynamite tater masher.
Jerry Blevins, Mets’ pitcher who has been out for the season after breaking his arm on a line drive, fell off a curb and re-fractured his arm. Out for the rest of the season.
Toronto swept Minnesota in a four-game series, something that according to the networks here has never happened before.
The Yankees are 4.5 games ahead of Toronto, which is a nice lead, but the two teams play THIRTEEN TIMES the rest of the year - about a quarter of their schedule. To give some context, prior to the wild card system, Toronto and New York would play each other 13 times in an entire season. While this is certainly a very fascinating situation and means one team could blow the other one right out of the playoffs, and is of course terrific if you’re a fan of the team that’s behind - go Jays - I have to question whether a schedule this fantastically unbalanced is actually a good one. I also assume there are other similar weirdnesses in other team’s schedules.
I mean, from a drama point of view it’s kind of cool the two teams vying for the division title, with the one behind being the one that got an ace pitcher recently, are playing 13 times. But suppose it wasn’t Toronto chasing New York. Suppose Tampa Bay was in their place, and Toronto had played really badly, and at the trading deadline they held a fire sale and traded off Jose Bautista, Edwin Encarnacion, Mark Buerhle and a few other names, and now New York got to play 13 games against a team that was half Blue Jays and half Buffalo Bisons. That would kind of suck for the Orioles, wouldn’t it? I know over the course of the year the O’s and Yanks play the same number of games against the Jays but under such a circumstance they may be playing the bulk of their games against a substantially different team.
The schedule just isn’t as good as it used to be. I hate to throw another bitch out there about interleague play, but it introduces these complications and imbalances to the schedule.
The unbalanced schedule really has nothing to do with either the wild card system, or interleague play; any of the three elements could be abolished without undoing the others. The value of an unbalanced schedule is in giving divisions (and thus the playoffs between division winners) significance.
The oddity in the Toronto/NYY schedule here is really just that it’s weighted toward the tail end of the season. As you say, they’re not playing each other more often overall than any two teams in any division.
If it’s the evolution of teams over the course of the long season that bugs you, perhaps you should be asking for more limits on rosters and trades.
The Tulo trade is looking better and better for the Jays, as much as I questioned it at the time. It definitely helps that they did end up getting a legitimate starter, too.
You know who else was fun to watch hit HR? Not Hitler. Glenallen Hill.
There is nothing inherently wrong in a schedule giving preference to divisional play.
The best schedule MLB has ever had as the 12-team-two-division format. Each team played 18 games a year against divisional opponents (90 games) and 12 against opponents from the other division (72 games.) While not “balanced,” it was inherently fair. Every team had precisely the same opportunity as every other team against the same opponents; no team could possibly have a schedule that was weighted against them in comparison to a team competing for the same playoff spot. The seven-team-two-division schedule was also fair, though not as well weighted - you played more teams out of division than in - but nothing else really fit a 162-game season.
The problem with the current format is that by necessitating interleague games, nobody has a truly identical schedule and weirdnesses like playing the same team 13 times in two months will pop up, because it’s inherently harder to create a more reasonable schedule.
I can understand a Blue Jays fan’s apprehension at the thought of 13 more games against the Yankees. The “drama” angle is cooled off considerably by the fact that Toronto traditionally collapses at the very sight of pinstripes (since 2011, the Blue Jays’ record against the Yankees is a rocking 31-49, a .388 winning percentage, worse than their head-to-head record against any other team in the division or the rest of the AL).
I’d love to see them overtake N.Y. but would bet against it.
I think you misunderstand. Toronto fans are thrilled it lines up this way; the Jays are a better team, and in any case it is likelier to catch up if you play head to head. (That said I am specifically pessimistic about tonight, with Gopher Ball Dickey on the mound.)
I just don’t think the schedule should be this way. It’s silly.