Less Than One Year After Winning A World Series Title, The Red Sox Have Fired Dave Dombrowski

Welp! Big drama in Boston tonight, as around 9 o’clock, word had begun traveling around the hallways of Fenway Park that Dave Dombrowski had been fired by the Boston Red Sox. Not stepped down. Fired.

One of the rumors making the rounds was that Dombrowski didn’t exactly take too well to this news, which kind of has me wondering if maybe he wasn’t supposed to find out when he did. Perhaps the decision to let Dombrowski go had already been made by ownership, but the architect of the 2018 World Series championship team had gotten word before he was supposed to. Don’t know. Just a theory. Regardless, the Red Sox are moving forward into a pivotal offseason without Dombrowski at the helm of baseball operations. Instead, it’ll be the trio of Eddie Romero, Brian O’Halloran, and Zack Scott splitting up the workload.

I mean, when you have a season play out as disappointingly as this one has, somebody’s gotta take the fall. With Dombrowski going into the offseason without an extension, there was definitely a growing sense that he’d be out at some point soon. However, I did not see his exit playing out like this. If anything, I assumed that Dombrowski would’ve walked on his own, citing that he had accomplished all that he had hoped to do during his time in Boston. The firing comes as somewhat a surprise. If the rumors are true, then apparently it was a surprise to him, too.

I will say this, though — Dave Dombrowski was exactly as advertised. He was known for completing blockbuster trades, and he got you a Hall of Fame closer in Craig Kimbrel and a Hall of Fame starter in Chris Sale. He was known for spending boatloads of money, and he signed David Price and JD Martinez, while extending Sale and Xander Bogaerts to big money contracts. He was known for building shitty bullpens, and check out what the Red Sox are working with in 2019. And he was known for blowing up farm systems, so say hello to one of the worst farm systems in baseball. But he won you a World Series. And in the end, that’s really all that matters.

I will look back on the Dave Dombrowski Era here in Boston very fondly. Sure, I’ll probably feel differently in a few years when the Red Sox are unable to sign all of the young talent that they need to because they have money tied up elsewhere, and there aren’t any major prospects coming down the pipeline because they all got dealt at one point or another.

But when the end result of all that prospect-flipping and money-spending ends up being the winningest team in franchise history and a World Series title, then can you really complain? Maybe a little bit, but you’d sound like a spoiled asshole for doing it. Sure, everybody would like sustained success, but I’ll take the one world-beating, ass-kicking, history-making 2018 team over six straight years of winning the division and not much else.

Thank you for your contributions to constructing arguably the greatest team in Red Sox franchise history, Mr. Dombrowski. God speed.