Dave Dombrowski won big in his fifth year in Florida, and in his fifth year in Detroit. He’s in Boston now because the Red Sox expect him to win big there, too, but there’s no way they expect him to take five years to do it.
Nor should they, because even though the Red Sox are headed for a third last-place finish in four years, they’re far ahead of where the expansion team Marlins or collapsing Tigers were when Dombrowski took charge.
They have talent, and the resources to go get more of it. With the right moves and the right amount of good fortune, they could win soon.
Like next year.
It won’t be easy. If it was going to be easy, the Red Sox wouldn’t need to pay Dombrowski big money to do it, and Bleacher Report wouldn’t need to pay me (somewhat smaller money) to predict it.
He’ll earn the big money if he does it, because his job is harder than mine. He has to operate in the real world, and there’s no guarantee that everything suggested here will even be possible.
Like trading Hanley Ramirez.
My friend John Tomase of WEEI.com wrote Thursday, “Ramirez needs to go.” He’s right, and it’s going to take all of Dombrowski’s huge trading skill to make it happen. It will likely require eating quite a bit of the remaining $68.25 million on Ramirez’s contract, and it will require taking less than equal value (in baseball terms, anyway) in return.
But just as agreeing to sign Ramirez to play left field was the No. 1 mistake the Red Sox made last winter, ridding themselves of Ramirez now becomes No. 1 on the priority list for next winter.
Moving Ramirez to first base isn’t the long-term answer, but it could help build some trade value. No one is going to trade for him as a full-time first baseman, but perhaps Dombrowski can sell him as a Victor Martinez type, someone who can play in the field every now and then while primarily serving as a DH.
Trading Ramirez will be addition by subtraction, but Dombrowski will need to do plenty of addition by addition, too. If signing Ramirez was the No. 1 mistake last winter, then failing to add a top-of-the-rotation starter was No. 1A.
Dombrowski’s move to Boston should be great news for David Price, Zack Greinke and Johnny Cueto, the three top-of-the-rotation starters who will become free agents (assuming Greinke opts out of his contract). Baseball people who know Dombrowski consider it a given that he will make signing one of the three a big priority, which should help make all three of them very rich.
With big-money teams like the Los Angeles Dodgers, Chicago Cubs and others (Houston Astros? New York Yankees?) shopping in the same high-end pitching market, it’s not a given that Dombrowski will get any of the three. So he may need to add the top starter through trade.
That won’t be easy, either, but do the Red Sox have enough young talent to tempt Billy Beane to part with Sonny Gray? They might, and Dombrowski should try.
If he gets to the end of the winter and the only big moves he has made are to jettison Ramirez and add Price, Cueto, Greinke or Gray, Dombrowski will already have a much-improved team that could win in 2016. But he should—and will—do more.
He should add a second starting pitcher, perhaps a free agent on the level of Mike Leake, perhaps a trade candidate like James Shields. Besides upgrading a rotation that ranks 28th in baseball with a 4.72 ERA (only the Colorado Rockies and Philadelphia Phillies have been worse), adding two pitchers would give the Red Sox the depth to trade someone like Wade Miley and/or to try guys like Joe Kelly and Matt Barnes in the bullpen.
Rebuilding the bullpen is a must, and it’s a familiar task for Dombrowski from his recent time with the Tigers. That history, though, suggests that building a bullpen is not his strength.
You might notice that we don’t have Dombrowski adding a single position player up to this point. He obviously will, even though the lineup he inherits is third in the major leagues in runs. The needs will depend in part on whether Dombrowski trades any of his major league talent to get someone like Gray (would it take Xander Bogaerts or Mookie Betts?), but regardless, the Red Sox could use another middle-of-the-order hitter.
What they have right now isn’t an overly powerful lineup, particularly if they stay with a Betts-Jackie Bradley Jr.-Rusney Castillo outfield (which would help the pitching). A big-hitting first baseman would be the easiest fit.
There’s plenty more to do, including building a roster that rebuilds the chemistry the Red Sox had in 2013 but so badly lacked this season. And, of course, Dombrowski needs to figure out who to keep and who to add to the front office he inherited (a process he’s working his way through right now).
What about John Farrell?
The Red Sox manager is on leave while he undergoes cancer treatment. While the Red Sox haven’t said anything about his status for 2016, what makes most sense is for Dombrowski to bring him back if Farrell feels up to it.
The Red Sox have had enough clumsily handled departures this year, the latest being this week’s decision on classy and talented NESN announcer Don Orsillo. The last thing they need is to fire a manager while he’s in chemotherapy.
Besides, Farrell won a World Series in Boston. Moving on from him shouldn’t be a priority.
There’s too much else to focus on first.
Danny Knobler covers Major League Baseball as a national columnist for Bleacher Report.
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