Dave Dombrowski on Red Sox: 'It's a great opportunity'

BOSTON – In separate press conferences in private clubs inside Fenway Park, Dave Dombrowski began his tenure with the Red Sox while Ben Cherington ended his.

In the first media session, with a much larger crowd, principal owner John Henry introduced Dombrowski, calling it "a great day for the future of the Red Sox."

Henry told of the first time he worked with Dombrowski, after buying the Marlins in 1998, pointing out several of his then-general manager's acquisitions, including Miguel Cabrera, Josh Beckett and Adrian Gonzalez. When Henry was preparing to sell the team, he encouraged Dombrowski to look for another opportunity that would give him the resources to put together a championship-caliber team.

The pair are reunited in Boston, and – with a payroll north of $180 million – Henry should be able to provide those resources to his new president of baseball operations.

Dombrowski met with Henry, chairman Tom Werner and part owner Mike Gordon at the owners meeting in Chicago on Thursday. Shortly after the Red Sox announced earlier this month that president Larry Lucchino would be stepping down after the season, the Tigers released Dombrowski after 14 years to pursue other opportunities.

Once the decision was made, Dombrowski said he wanted to start his new job "probably the sooner, the better."

On Wednesday afternoon, Dombrowski sat at a dais in Fenway with Henry and Werner to his right, and Sam Kennedy, who will replace Lucchino, to his left.

"It's a great opportunity," Dombrowski said.

But Dombrowski will also have a good amount of work ahead of him. In his time in Detroit, he turned one of the worst teams in baseball into a perennial contender. The Red Sox beat the Tigers in the 2013 ALCS on the way to a World Series title – their third since 2004.

But, in two of the last three years – except for that 2013 World Series – the Sox have finished in last place. Dombrowski is taking over a team that is 53-66, again in last place.

"There's a lot of work to be done," he said.

"You look at the ball club, there's a lot of great young talent breaking in at the major league level at this time. The minor league system has a lot of talent also. So when you start looking at opportunities that come around, there aren't very many opportunities like this that exist. So I could have waited, but to me there made no sense in waiting."

Less than 24 hours into his new job, Dombrowski said he has not yet had time to fully evaluate the team on the field or the organization off the field to fully assess what needs to be addressed. He will spend the remainder of the season doing that to prepare for potential offseason moves.

That includes filling the GM vacancy left when Cherington opted not to stay with the team. Dombrowski said he does not have a timeline to fill the job, preferring to search for the right person.

"I think the job is a very large job as far as responsibilities are concerned. There's a lot of work to be done," he said. "I think that's having a front office that's large, that's working together on the same page will be important. I really don't have a specific 'this is a leading candidate for a general manager.'"

Dombrowski said he was initially hopeful that Cherington would stay on. Henry echoed that sentiment.

"We were hopeful that Ben Cherington would remain as general manager but knew there was substantial risk he would not," Henry said.

The reward of hiring Dombrowski apparently outweighed the risk of losing Cherington, who has been with the organization since 1999 when he was an area scout. Cherington said he was told on Saturday of the possibility that Dombrowski would join the Red Sox, which caught him by surprise. With four days to process the news, he decided by Tuesday, when the official announcement was made, that he would step down.

"I want to say I've got great respect for Dave Dombrowski," Cherington said. "His resume speaks for itself and he'll be a great asset to the Red Sox and I wish him and I wish the Red Sox nothing but the best going forward.

"(But) when I got this information on Saturday, between Saturday and Tuesday I had some time to think about that. I was able to gather as much information as I could about what was going on and what that might mean. I came to the determination, in this case, what was best for Dave and what was best for me and what was best for the Red Sox was the same thing, and that was a clean break."

Cherington said several times in his media session he could not fully commit to being "all in" under the new structure and be "fully committed to that vision" with a new regime.

The change from Cherington to Dombrowski would also appear to reflect a stark change in organizational philosophy. Cherington has followed the team's stat-driven analytical model while being extremely methodical in roster moves. Henry praised him Wednesday for protecting the team's prospects at the trading deadline. Dombrowski, conversely, has built a reputation based more on scouting, unafraid of trading prospects to bring in major league talent.

Werner, though, downplayed those differences.

"I think too much has been made about perhaps a sea change," Werner said. "After all, our focus has always been about winning. We have used data as part of our toolbox, but in the end it's all about player evaluation and data and character. And I think we're all united that we're giving Dave the responsibility of fielding a championship ball club and I'm sure he'll speak to his philosophy, but we talked about it and we think that there's a lot more in common than perhaps has been suggested."

Time will tell.

http://www.usatoday.com/story/sports/mlb/2015/08/19/dave-dombrowski-red-sox-great-opportunity/32024083/