“Baseball guy” is a term that is extremely vague. Allow me to be vague for a moment as John Henry and Tom Werner hired long time Detroit Tigers general manager and renowned “Baseball guy,” Dave Dombrowski.
Dombrowski, who served as the general manager for the Tigers for 13 years, is well respected around the baseball community. It is often forgotten that Dombroski was instrumental in personal decisions, which lead to the Florida Marlins winning the World Series in the 1997 season, and laid the groundwork for Florida's 2003 championship.
In fact Red Sox principal owner, John Henry, and Dave Dombrowski are anything but strangers to one another. Henry was the co-owner of the Marlins back in the late 90s working alongside H. Wayne Huizenga. With Jim Leyland as the manager in Florida, Dombrowski had the freedom, flexibility, and autonomy to slowly build a solid farm system for the Marlins, which of course culminated in winning the World Series in 1997.
Dombroski is considered “old school” in the sense that he does not rely on the sabermetrics and moneyball theories of building a team i.e. Bill James and Billy Bean. Dombrowski is a talent evaluator, and has made more good decisions than poor in his 37 years in baseball.
Big ticket moves such as trading for Miguel Cabrera in the winter of 2007, or trading for Max Scherzer and Austin Jackson in 2009, have catapulted Dombrowski’s stature in this league. He is a general manager who is not afraid to make a big splash.
The biggest news in this story is the Red Sox swallowing a horse pill in the sense that they want to get away from sabermetrics. They are relying on computers and advanced statistics, as well as algorithms to assemble their team.
This coming just a few weeks after long-time Red Sox CEO Larry Lucchino stepped down (or was forced out) of the organization. As far as Ben Cherringtons' future is concerned, he will have to find a way to explain to future employers that Boston's 2013 championship was no fluke.
He also has to have an explanation for signing Hanley Ramirez, Pablo Sandoval and Rick Porcello to mammoth deals this past off season.
Good luck with that Ben.
