When the Philadelphia Phillies rallied to beat the San Diego Padres Sunday, they propelled themselves to the World Series, and in so doing, may well have guaranteed that Dave Dombrowski, their president of baseball operations, will someday be enshrined in Cooperstown.
Team goal aside, the Phils' win means Dombrowski has now constructed pennant winners for four different franchises -- the (then) Florida Marlins, Detroit Tigers, Phillies, and of course, Red Sox.
No other baseball executive can match that achievement. And if the Phillies can upset the Houston Astros in the upcoming World Series, Dombrowski would become the first to lead three different franchises to championships.
(Granted, not a lot of executives have been in charge of four different teams. There's not another current executive in the game today who has run four franchises in his career. In fact, no one has been the chief decision-maker for more than two clubs. But the indisputable fact remains: wherever Dombrowski's been, he's won.).
The success of the Phillies is a familiar one in terms of Dombrowski's career arc. In Philadelphia -- as in Miami, Detroit, and Boston before -- he was tasked with winning for a team that was in desperate need of a ring. The Marlins had never won in their history until Dombrowski's 1997 club won the NL pennant and then beat Cleveland in the Series.
Next came Detroit, which hadn't won a pennant since 1984. Under aging owner Mike Illitch, the Tigers were all in and Dombrowski took them to two World Series -- 2006 and 2012 -- though the Tigers couldn't win it all and have a championship drought that is now almost 40 years long. Still, under Dombrowski, they played in two World Series and went to the ALCS two other times.
In Boston, Dombrowski was a surprising hire in August of 2015, pushing aside Ben Cherington, the architect of the 2013 World Series only 22 months earlier. Beginning in 2016, the Red Sox won division titles for three straight years, culminating in a championship in 2018, when the Sox set a franchise record for most regular season wins, then steamrolled every opponent in their way that October.
Now, Philadelphia: a DNQ in 2021, followed by a pennant in Year 2.
The narrative surrounding Dombrowski is that of a quick-fix artist, who sacrifices the future for a more rewarding present. Certainly, that was his modus operandi in Boston, when he traded prospects to land Craig Kimbrel and Chris Sale, while spending big on free agents J.D. Martinez and David Price.
But it's hard to look back at Dombrowski's tenure with the Red Sox and second-guess his big moves. To land Sale, he surrendered Yoan Moncada and Michael Kopech. The former has underachieved and the latter has been beset by injuries.
The pieces for Kimbrel were highlighted by pitcher Logan Allen (now with Cleveland) and Manuel Margot (now with Tampa Bay). Neither has been much more than an average major league performer -- at best.
Importantly, it's worth noting that Dombrowski moved the right prospects. The White Sox were said to be demanding Rafael Devers instead of Moncada, but Dombrowski wouldn't budge. That proved prescient -- to say the least.
And while Dombrowski's major trades drained the Red Sox farm system significantly in his time here, the tradeoff was three straight first-place finishes and a Duck Boat parade -- a swap every Red Sox fan would sign off on immediately.
His impact on Philadelphia's roster has been less dramatic. Key cornerstones Bryce Harper, J.T. Realmuto, Rhys Hoskins, Alec Bohm, Aaron Nola, Zack Wheeler all pre-date Dombrowski's arrival. But Dombrowski may well have saved Philadelphia's season in June when he fired Joe Girardi and installed bench coach Rob Thomson as his replacement.
The move turned the Phillies around. Under Girardi, whose uptight personality wore on the clubhouse, the Phils were just 22-29. Under Thomson's more relaxed style, the Phils flourished, finishing 65-46, a 95-win pace.
Dombrowski did add two big bats last winter -- free agents Nick Castellanos and Kyle Schwarber -- while upgrading at the deadline with solid pickups (Noah Syndergaard, Brandon Marsh, David Robertson).
His success since leaving Boston doesn't necessarily mean the Red Sox were wrong to move on from him. Given the disrepair of the player development system, maybe it was best to choose someone else who was more suited for the task. Chaim Bloom's time has been, to be charitable, mixed so far -- a vastly improved farm system, yes, but the major league team has twice finished last since he took over.
Still, it's not as though the Red Sox fired Dombrowski because they wanted to hire Bloom specifically. They could have been right to seek a new direction, and still have made the wrong choice. This upcoming offseason will go a long way to determine whether Bloom will continue on the job, and help define his tenure here.
What could be fascinating is to see what happens to the Phillies going forward -- well beyond the next two weeks. Whether the Phillies win the World Series or not, they will need to show some sustainability in a division loaded with top competition. The Braves have secured almost half their roster with long-term extensions and the Mets have proven they will outspend nearly any other team.
At 66, this is almost certainly Dombrowski's last professional stop. If the Phils can reload some and remain in contention for pennants for, say, the next three or four seasons after this, he'll have answered the one remaining question attached to his legacy.
For now, however, the notoriously demanding Philadelphia fan base is likely unworried. As the saying goes: Prospects are nice; Parades are better.