MLB Notebook: The Curse of Dave Dombrowski for Red Sox? Case for Eddie Romero, and E-Rod?

Special to BostonSportsJournal.com

Over four years later, the Boston Red Sox are seemingly still paying the price for their premature dismissal of Dave Dombrowski.

The abrupt ending to Dombrowski’s tenure in 2019 — followed by another short shelf life for his successor Chaim Bloom — has left prospective candidates for Boston’s top front office job spurning the team’s advances. 

Imagine that notion a little more than a decade ago. This isn’t the Kansas City Royals we’re talking about. These are the Boston Red Sox — baseball’s most successful franchise of the new millennium.

And none of the big names are interested. 

The Red Sox have spent more than a decade trying to replicate the success at both the major and minor league levels of wunderkind general manager Theo Epstein. 

Dombrowski came to Boston with a straightforward M.O. Sell the farm, spend money, win a World Series. It worked, in record fashion. Boston’s 2018 season was far and away the best in the franchise’s 123-year history. 

Three straight first-place finishes. A World Series championship. Then came one bad season in 2019, and for some reason, John Henry’s patience had worn thin. 

The knock against Dombrowski that he left his previous teams’ farm systems in shambles has been dispelled with the emergence of prospects like Brayan Bello, Triston Casas and Tanner Houck — already solid major league contributors. 

In reality, Dombrowski was as good as it gets in the post-Theo era — and they showed him the door. 

No wonder nobody else has come knocking… 

A case for Eddie 

Many who are still interested in the Red Sox’s baseball operations leadership role have previous ties to the organization — former pitcher-turned-assistant GM Craig Breslow, former outfielder-turned-manager Gabe Kapler and longtime executive Eddie Romero among them.

Romero, the team’s current Executive Vice President/Assistant General Manager, stands out as an intriguing option. He’s set to enter his 24th season with the organization and has received consideration for the role in the past. 

A man who is seemingly well respected throughout baseball, Romero would give the team the best of all worlds. He has learned the tools of the trade under every Red Sox baseball ops leader since 2006. He has seen what works — and what hasn’t worked.

At a time when ownership is under scrutiny for their quick dismissals of baseball leadership, rewarding a longstanding member of the organization who has risen up the ranks should be well-received by other executives around the league.

Why can’t we get players like that?

Old friend Kyle Schwarber has been at the center of the (Dombrowski-led) Philadelphia Phillies’ second straight trip to the NL Championship Series. 

Craig Kimbrel (who never blew a save in the Red Sox’s 2018 postseason run, mind you) has pitched well out of the Phillies’ bullpen — until the last two games, both losses.

World Series-winning starter Nathan Eovaldi has anchored the Texas Rangers’ rotation on the way to their first AL Championship Series appearance since 2011.

Former Red Sox free agent target Jose Abreu is well on his way toward earning ALCS MVP honors with the Houston Astros.

All players the Red Sox weren’t willing to spend for in free agency.

“Worst to first” works — for the Red Sox

Whoever the Red Sox hires as their next baseball leader, they will be doomed from the start if Henry’s ownership isn’t willing to spend like they used to.

No, it isn’t that the Red Sox have stopped spending entirely. But the “win at all costs” mentality the team employed from the early 2000s through the end of the Dombrowski era isn’t there anymore.

The reality is, as Henry himself said, it’s expensive to have good baseball players. Yet paying good baseball players is the best way to ensure repeated success.

Not every high-priced free agent signing is going to work out — case in point, the New York Mets and their record payroll this season — but deep pockets give you the flexibility to move on from bad deals quickly.

In that way, the “worst to first” approach can still be sustainable for the Red Sox.

Hopefully another last-place finish will have been enough to reignite ownership’s desperation to win — and win now. 

E-Rod reunion?

With Eduardo Rodriguez reportedly set to opt out of his deal with the Detroit Tigers, a reunion with the former Boston southpaw would make a lot of sense. 

If the plan is to return to contender status in 2024, that is.

Rodriguez peaked in his penultimate season with the team, winning 19 games with a career-high 213 strikeouts on the way to a sixth-place finish in AL Cy Young Award voting. 

After bouncing back from a disappointing first season in Detroit with 13 wins and a 3.30 ERA across 26 starts in 2023, it likely won’t be cheap to recoup his services. Rodriguez would be walking away from three years and $49 million, after all. 

But investing in Rodriguez as a middle-of-the-rotation type arm would be a good starting point for a team whose starting rotation has been woefully deficient in recent years.

Gethin Coolbaugh is a contributor to Boston Sports Journal. Follow him @GethinCoolbaugh on X.